When I go around to get a cheap External SATA SSD to do my External Storage. I have found out Orico have produce SATA Solid State Disk. The price are reasonable compare with other brand ranges. So I have decided to have a try on 256GB Orico SATA Solid State Disk.

After few days of delivery, I manage to get the disk and begin do the unboxing. In the box it only have a Orico Y-20 SATA Solid State Disk and a User Manual. Below is the unbox video done for my viewers.



As usual Do the Benchmark of the Hard Disk to ensure the agreed Reading Speed is 500MB/s and Writing Speed is 450MB/s. Below is the benchmark result taken by Crystal Disk Mark.

Overall the build quality of the disk is good and light. Will need to try used and see how good is the normal usage as a External Disk for my daily fail backup.

After 2 months of using the VINCLAB DIY PORTABLE PURIFIER, it has appeared many weird 1st impression about this build. Let’s share this story to you all.

1st impression of this build, when I go to any restaurant and office cubical. I put this device on the table than I do my normal eating or working tasks. Some of my friends, next tables people and the shop owner ask me what is this thing. I told them is a portable air purifier. Their impression shocks me. Some said it look like a bomb, Bluetooth speakers and power generator charger.

So I explain the DIY build of my thing so I can easy carry where I go without mess my hand to carry the power bank and the ait purifier. Some ask me where to purchase. That make me happy where some people see the portable and flexibility of this build.

There have a place when I pass thru a security scan in a mall. The guard ask me “apa ini macam bahaya” it mean “What is this look hazard” I told them is a air purifier and I show them the brand of the products and it attach with the power bank. So they let me pass thru. That remind me when I in the air port where the customs police stop me where they claim my laptop contain gun powders.

This is a very good experience where people are very alert the unique thing carry by unknown person. So far I am happy to carry this VINCLAB DIY PORTABLE PURIFIER.

To all my viewer, be safe and healthy to stay together with the viruses and bacteria around us.

With the new normal has begun… there will be a routine task that we all needed to do. Wear masks when you go out for glossary and dine-in. How you can prevent yourself when you are partially protected. There are many products out there selling the Portable HEPA 13 filter or better air filtration solution. Those portable solution will only can do some air filtration as small area at indoor setting.

With this finding, I have decided to get a average type of HEPA 13 filtration solution with a power bank. The beginning I used when I go out for a dine-in. it feels a bit troublesome and messy on the table where the power bank and the air filter units are all around.


So, I decided to go search for a portable bag where it can carry both device together but fail. Decided to give a challenge by DIY (Do It Yourself) it. I found the Strap Tape and it cost me around RM6 per 5 Meter long. I have purchase it and begin my project.


It took me sometime to do the study of the handle strength and reduce the cut of the strap tape so future can be reused for others objectives. It is called recycle…

At last I have managed to make the final products. I am happy with it and in future I can carry along and put on the desktop and table easy and portable. With the power bank I have used for long time is 18000Mah. Ii has mist of my worries where no power to charge my phone together to have this device working as normal. I have solved one of my challenges by doing the DIY solution where is around RM6.


Reference
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251049

Synology DSM 7.0 has official release since June 23, 2021. Because of this, is time to get a personal NAS storage to replace legacy way of mange in folders and files at external hard drive and paid Cloud Storage.

Initially I have used Synology Solution since 2009 my old legacy Synology DS-109J model as my personal web server and as media storage. During that era is not feasible for me to used as personal NAS storage on cloud where Internet Technology in my country was expensive and slow for file transfer. That is the reason I have used it as my personal local network storage.

When the time come External Hard disk already become the commodity items to keep your huge data into it and store it. that time i have stop using it.

After many years past, the cloud storage already be the commodity where many end-point devices will have their own default cloud storage solution. The cost of it is paid annually with the limited storage. initially this solution is good where data file is not huge during the initial start. in year 2021 many people struggling to paid the monthly fees during this Pandemic just because needed to ensure their data will not lost and destroy. As the cloud storage vendors know majority of the person is just keep the data in their storage and will not do any housekeeping. it will grow dramatically where the times come to purchase additional storage with them. The time you purchase it will be to late. like i have some bad experience where your upload photos and file was easy to their cloud. but you will have difficulty to download back or maybe some photos already been reduce their quality due to the sick of not paid additional fees to get additional storage and used the compression that has impact most of the high-resolutions photos taken on cameras.

As a personal used solution, done some common solution for comparisons. as the Common NAS solution it will used as File Storage Solution and Web Hosting. greatly the DSM 7.0 come with Synology Office near similar than Google Docs and Microsoft Office 365 Web Solution.

Solution	Storage	Workspace	Web Hosting
Synology	Synology DSM 7.0
Google	Google One		Google Cloud Platform
Microsoft	Microsoft 365 Personal		Azure Cloud

As the comparisons above, Synology DSM 7.0 solution work more practical and good for common routine lifestyle used. The data is hosted at your own house network where Google and Microsoft Solution needed to store your data on their cloud.

There always has pros and cons hosting your data via Private NAS and Public Cloud. Below is the simple comparisons to make a decision.

Type	Private NAS	Public NAS	Remark
Brand	Synology	Google, Microsoft
Home Internet Broadband	Yes	Yes	Both required to have internet connection to access it.
Data Stored	Local	Cloud	Private NAS keepthe data locally where Public NAS will storage in the vendors data-center.
Investment	Fixed One-Time Cost	Monthly Metering	Private NAS need to purchase the entire solution and deploy at local network where Public NAS will count depending how you used the solutions. Initial Price Public NAS will be cheaper than Private NAS.
IT Tech-Savvy	Yes	Yes	Both also need to do configuration to make it works.
Productivity Solution	Yes	Yes	Both NAS solution come with Professional Solution to manage your documents, photos and files.

As opinion suggestion, Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and Personal Used of NAS storage is a very good move to go to Private NAS solution. For the Enterprise who want to keep all the archiving data where it count by per Terabytes price. is good to used Private NAS for safe keeping.

As all this research and features suite my current situation, I have purchase Synology DS 920+ NAS storage. Once get all the more details on hands-on on it. Will put it in review in phases.

Few days back, while having my weekend evening, I have received a SMS form a Company Touch and Go. It said a surprise award for me by key in the ID to reload my E-Wallet. As I see the SMS I feel it seem like not a legit that no such activities and roadshow been public release. So, I decided to as Touch and Go Service Center. It routed me to Facebook Messenger.

As usual when you ask anything in there they will respond you the common reply that make me feel “I Am a Robot” that talking to the Chatbot. As their Careline Operate from 8:30AM – 5:30PM from Monday and Friday Only. So I am so curious since no one work during that time why have such SMS ask me to redeem the reload PIN.


So, I decided to ignore the SMS that I feel is a scam or another way of Social Engineering Hacking.

After the next day another SMS come to remind me to redeem and reload PIN. I start begin to feel fishy that why remind me to redeem that company really want me to get their gift? As my way of safely and prevention. I will wait the Touch and Go Careline respond my Facebook Messenger. But so far nope. So continue Ignore.

The final day of redeem SMS as arrived said like I no redeem I lost the chance. So faster reload… As the Touch and Go Careline also not so efficient, why redeem free things for customer so efficient. Sure, that is something not right. That is the reason I post these details here. Can anyone tell me is it legit?

The Malaysia Government has announced Malaysia under "Full Lockdown" begin 1^st June 2021. After the announcement, Many Malaysian again trigger their panic mode that they go for panic buying. As curious why they no think why we need to have panic buying where essential supply will be remain produce. Hope Malaysian remaining claim and no panic during this pandemic, we as Malaysian needed to stay at home if can to avoid any spread.

As today already hit the number 9,020 cases positive with in-total 558,534 cases. Sad to heard that 2,650 has pass away in Malaysia due to this outbreak. Be safe and ensure your cleanliness to control this outbreak. Avoid going crowded places and panic buying.

During this "Full Lockdown", take this opportunity to win the battle to control the Pandemic. Take Care and be healthy.

As our daily used of cotton, linen and wool in our life. Those material normally will be our clothing, Bed Sheet, Towels and others. The more you used, overtime the cloth material will be thinner. This will generate small dirty particles that we call Lint.

Can the Lint remove? The answer is yes. There have many ways to remove the lint at your cloth material. If you don’t have the tools you can used your bare hand to peel one by one. You also can use the Lint Brush remover to do so. But those method can faster make the cloth material go thinner and soon unwearable. So, the ideal solution is to cut the lint out.

You cannot used scissor to cut lint one by one it can accidently damage the cloth material by cut it apart. When I go do a study and see is there anything look like a shaver concept to cut the lint. Than I found the Mijia Lint Remover. So without any decision, I have bought it without any sponsors.


In this package, it has the Lint Remover device, an USB Cable (to charge the devices) and a brush to clean and maintain the devices with Lint stuck or block the cutting process. The Mijia Lint Remover look like Shaver, but it has double or tripper of the size.


It come with 5 blades where it can be replaced when it blunt. One thing good about it there have a disposable space at the hander to give more space to the blade to trim the Lint without flooded in the cutting process.


There is a good and practical design for me to open and clean-up. There also have a transparent screen at the Lint Storage, it can indicator where it has how many more room to keep the lint before do the clean-up.


So far, I have removed the lint on my old bed sheets cloth. The old bed sheets where it contains Lint. It is not comfortable to used because of the lint that make the cloth rough and not comfortable. So I do the test how good is the Mijia Lint Remover. The result is promising, the Lint been successfully removing with minor damage of the cloth compare you using the lint brush to pull the lint out. Overall, this Mijia Lint Remover is worth to get one in each household to clean and remove all the Lint in our daily used cloth material.

Reach the Chinese New Year Eve, Wish Everyone Happy Chinese New Year. May the Year of Ox bring everyone good health, good luck and much happiness throughout the year.

When you come to digitalisation where paper soon will be replaced by Tablet. Tablet holder will be the common accessories to hold it. There have many ways to hold the tablet. As now i see many food recipes already can easily read and watch online. to avoid dirty the book recipe or Tablet, you need the holder where it can save spaces and view eye level. I have done my research and finally i has found the suitable solution for my small kitchen tabletop. introducing UGreen Wall Mount Phone Holder.


UGreen Wall Mount Phone Holder is with metal with grey metallic colour. It come with device holder or it also can become as key or cable holder. The quality look good and solid build.


The UGreen Wall Mount Phone Holder it has a soft cushion in the U shape holder to hold your devices without been scratch by the body metal. this is good when you have done the used of the devices, it can keep in more secure way to prevent it drop out from the holder.


behind the body it has a screwless method to mount this phone holder. There have many screwless solution to ensure the Phone Holder hold solidly on the wall, as a experience and maturely brand wise, this UGreen Wall Mount Phone Holder come with 3M VHB Tapes.

as 3M website, it say "With 3Mâ„¢ VHBâ„¢ Tapes, you can maintain consistency from sketch to construction, eliminating distracting, visible fasteners, like screws and bolts. These high-strength, double-sided acrylic foam tapes let you quickly and easily create a long-lasting bond that builds strength over time. With the ability to join a variety of materials including aluminium, steel, glass, plastics and painted and powder-coated surfaces, they provide resilient bonding solutions in just about anything you can dream up."


End it has mounted on my kitchen wall and put an 7-inch tablet into the test. it seems it solidly hold the tablet. As this is one of the recommendation use case tools at the kitchen digitalisation.

I have a friend who give me this as a gift appreciation. This Promate Chill the Portable Wireless Speaker with Rich Bass & 6W HD Sound. The box looks premium. It come with Bluetooth 5.0 and it claim the battery 1200mAh where it can last 3 – 4 hours of play. There have many ways to play like Bluetooth, AUX, Radio and SD Card.



This packing come with the actual Wireless Speaker, AUX cable and USB Cable for charging the Promate Chill. It has Volume Down, Volume Up, Play & pause, Power and Change Input Type buttons. The sound quality look good and I have do a recording to show how the sound quality. It no cracking and breaking sound while playing

As an employee of a company has a company appreciation day. We have collected a gift from the company. When I open is just a mask. As I see the box detail. I see is not a normal washable mask but it a unique mask where I feel is very premium.

Before I see I go details, I go wear this mask one day out for glossary. Initially it has a chemical smell on it but I feel is okay because those is to sanitize the mask after production so it will not have bacteria stay in the mask after used. I also feel the chemical smell will be day for a while to prevent the mask washable and the virus and bacteria affected the mask. I can breathe normally like the 3-ply Surgical mask. It says it has 4-ply of protection. It also easy to keep the mask by hanging on your neck like a necklace and it easy to wear back after a meal.

When I have my time to go online do some reading. I go to their website and read and see in detail on it. Viro Functional Mask is a 4 layered reusable & washable mask powered by swiss textile technology, HEIQ Viroblock-Antiviral Technology, not only shield us in our new normal life, but also act as a protective fashion apparel ready to add into your closet.



I never know it has a layers where can filter bacteria and virus. As the statistic show below, it claims it can filter 90% of virus out there where it similar with the 3-Ply Disposable Mask. The benefit of this mask is it can filter 99% of bacteria out there. That is very good product for outdoor used.

This Mask has certification and test report of their products where the nano PTFE filter material is certified and the results in the Bacterial Filtration Efficiency (BFE) test according to the requirements of the EN 14683: 2019 standard are > 99%. They also claim they are currently working towards CE and FDA Certification.



When you go to the shop cart it has written the disclaimer where it is fair where this is to protect us affected by Virus, Bacteria, Dust and pollen when we are having our outdoor activities. Below is the word they written.

DISCLAIMER:
THIS PRODUCT IS NOT INTENDED FOR MEDICAL USE, NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR MEDICAL GRADE PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT AND SHOULD NOT BE USED IN PLACE OF OTHER RECOMMENDED MEASURES TO INHIBIT THE SPREAD OF VIRUSES. THE USER HAS THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY TO CONFIRM THE SUITABILITY OF THE PRODUCT FOR ITS INTENDED PURPOSE AND SAFE USE.

Overall, I like this mask where you need to have long outdoor activities due to it can breath well and not any skin allergic where some on the mask out there may cause itchy and not comfortable for long wearing. You can go visit their website to see more with the link here https://kivrus.com/

This SSD Enclosure come with 2 type of connector, one is USB 3.0 or USC Type-C port. As my requirement of my SSD is to do my portable Storage to replace the USB Thumb Drive. It also soon can replace my external hard drive when the price of the M.2 SSD go cheaper per TeraBytes.



This box packaging it very look premium and I like the way it seals the box. This make the consumers feel this product was not been removed by someone. There also have imitation of it, do get it from the original Baseus to prevent any counterfeit.



This box come with 1 unit of Baseus full Speed Series SSD Enclosure, 1 unit of USB cables, 2 units of M.2 rubber SSD lock and paper manuals. It very good that they provide additional rubber SSD lock so it can be replaced if one of the rubber lock damage or lost.



There have many types of SSD in the market where really make majority of person don’t know is it this Baseus SSD Enclosure compatible with it. With this it supports M.2 B+M key (M.2 SATA) and M Key (M.2 NVME) interface. It also supports 22x30mm, 22x42mm 22x60mm and 22x80mm SSD Card Size.



Overall, this Baseus full Speed Series SSD Enclosure body was built with aluminum alloy where it can cool down the SSD temperature. The side is small and portable (121.5mm x 33.6mm x 11.4mm) where it can easy carry around and less worries on disk vibration.

When you in the technical design on the network there will have many different parties will tell you where your server will use the Standard Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 1500) and some will use the huge Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 9000). This is the common number always discussed.

As the Network standard, it will normally use the Standard Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 1500). For the storage vendors always requested to have the Huge Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 9000). Each of them has their own reason to do so. As they want to transport the data between storage to Servers with less Overhead Processing in the Storage Controller and Network Switches Processor.

The bigger Jumbo Frame will be the less payload, but it will have the dark side. The dark side of it is when you have the switches not supported the huge payload it will drop the data packet. This will cause the data transition delay or unstable. This situation it will be only see the network log full of data packet drop and lost.

A lot of upgrade of System Infrastructure will only concentrate on the benefits and not the current environment situations. Later I will show you the challenges of the Jumbo Frame architecture.


As shown above there will have a best setup huge Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 9000) on the Virtual Machine Switches (vSwitches) and the storage also support the huge Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 9000). Both been configured as the best practice for the ISCSI Storage Solution will reduce the Overhead processes. Sadly, the current switches have the challenges where it has challenges in huge Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 9000) architecture and set as standard Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 1500). This normally happen when you have the Standard Layer 2 or Layer 3 Switches. This will cause data transition delay or unstable.


To overcome this you need to get a Layer 2 or Layer 3 Switches where it can support huge Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 9000). That it will reduce the overhead processing and increase performance. This always the ideal design for the Infrastructure Datacenter.

Remember only huge Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 9000) can transport smaller payload than 9000K data where Standard Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 1500) will cause data transition delay or unstable. If you transport huge Jumbo Frame payload (MTU 9000).

I just want to have a better WIFI where I can solve my long-distance challenges of hacking and wire a network cable from difference floor. I am thinking to have a good WIFI Card that come with Bluetooth Connections. I have explored and found this TPLINK AX3000 Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.0 PCIe Adapter Model AX300E.


The box packaging look promising and one PCIe Adapter card have all the requirement I need. The unbox begin. It look neat and it arrange very well.


In this box contain Archer TX3000E PCIe Card with long Low-Profile Bracket, Magnetized Antenna Base with 1 meter RF Cable, Two 5 dBi High Gain Antennas, Short Low-Profile Bracket, Bluetooth Header Cable, Quick Installation Guide and a Resource CD. This PCIe Card claim it come with Bluetooth 5.0 but before you purchase do check your Motherboard is it have the USB Jumper in the board or not the Bluetooth Header Cable cannot be connected, this make you lost the Bluetooth 5.0 Features. It is only support Windows 10 Operating System.

When you get a certificate from a Certificate from vendor or Colleagues. They will normally provide you the .PFX format. Then you have the challenges how to allocate the certificate in the Linux Server where it needs .CER and .KEY files. That will be challenge where normally the person who generate the .KEY File during certificate licensing will not keep the copy. Without the key your certificate will consider not compliance.

No need to worries how to convert the the .PFX format to .CER and .KEY format as command below via OPENSSH in Linux

openssl pkcs12 -in /path/to/vinclab.pfx -nocerts -out /path/to/vinclab_encrypted.key
openssl pkcs12 -in /path/to/vinclab.pfx -clcerts -nokeys -out /path/to/vinclab.cer
openssl rsa -in /path/to/vinclab_encrypted.key -out /path/to/vinclab.key

if you want to see all in one text file than later manually extract out. you can do the following command
openssl pkcs12 -in /path/to/vinclab.pfx -out /path/to/vinclab.txt -nodes

In the vinclab.txt file that generate will contain 4 cetificates. There are Private Key, Certificate, Root CA and CA certificate. You just need to copy and paste into files. That it you already manage to get the .CER and .KEY format Certificate. That is common challenge when you struggle to get the .KEY from the initial person generate the CSR.

To begin your matrix LED lighting, you need to know how to design the output to do indication. You need to see the lighting binary array. With this Binary to Decimal Conversion Array, it is to simplify the calculation of array, below is the sample interactive 8 x 8 matrix’s LED Array Calculation.



You can interactively to design your 8 x 8 matrix’s LED Array by clicking the URL https://www.vinclab.com/v2/index/project-led

When people taking about building a web server. commonly people will used Apache Web Server. In the version of Ubuntu 18.04 Server edition, it has set all the basic security setting in place as below :

Hide Apache Version and Operating System and only show Server: Apache in the Header
ServerTokens Prod and ServerSignature off parameter in /etc/apache2/conf-avaliable/security.conf file.

TRACE HTTP Request will be Disable to prevent Hackers easily capture the cookies information
TraceEnable off parameter in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file.

There have some security area where it will not set as default due to the Web Application Design perquisite. Some application needed to list web directory and FollowSymLinks to download some file in the servers. Some also needed to lower down the security setting to minimize the impact of the Web Application Design. Like the Feature Policy, Referrer Policy and Content Security Policy. For me those are the options are recommended to deploy in the Header. If you not sure how your Web Application Policy Design, it is challenge for you to do this configuration.

As recommended to put the Header parameters in the in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file.

Required to deploy this Security parameters to prevent hackers to steal and malicious script where it be access any cookies, session tokens, or other sensitive information retained by the browser.
Header set Set-Cookie HttpOnly;Secure
Header always append X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN
Header set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=3153600"
Header set X-Content-Type-Options nosniff
Header set X-XSS-Protection: "1; mode=block"

recommended to deploy these policies if you understand your Web Application Security Design
Header set Referrer-Policy "no-referrer-when-downgrade"
Header always set Feature-Policy "microphone 'none'; payment 'none'; sync-xhr 'self' https://www.your-web.site"
Header set Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self';"

If you not sure where to deploy this parameters below is the screen caputure to guide you.



Save the file and restart the apache service.
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Regex is the common word as Regular Expression is commonly used to find a pattern of string. It also can verify the value of the data is valid or invalid. This technic is widely used in search and match any string with the specific pattern. Python and Perl were the main programming language since 1980s. Now there will have many Programming Language will provide regex capability either self-build, build-in or via Programming Libraries. Below is the regex code :-



In PHP you can used preg_match() library to do the REGEX matching as sample PHP code as shown below :-

if (preg_match('/^\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}$/', $varRegex)) { return “Match IP Address Pattern”; }

Below is the simple PHP code for you to extract data and return in JSON format. It will take time for me to insert more pattern to soeed up your coding time. Do drop comment if you want to add your pattern into my API code.

<?php
$cURLConnection = curl_init();
$varData = '820720888888' // Your Value;
curl_setopt($cURLConnection, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://www.vinclab.com/v2/regexchecker/' . $varData);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($cURLConnection,
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$jsonData = curl_exec($cURLConnection);
curl_close($cURLConnection);
$jsonArrayResponse = json_decode($jsonData);
?>

the JSON Output will be listed below :-
{"data":"820720888888","match":"Malaysia Identity Number","regex":"\/^\\d{6}-\\d{2}-\\d{4}$\/"}

On 11 March 2020 World Health Organization (WHO) has declare the COVID-19 as Pandemic. The meaning of Pandemic has nothing to do with how serious the illness is. It just means a disease is spreading widely.

As today count 156,369 people affected and 72,744 been recovered. Sad to heard that 5808 has pass away due to this outbreak. Be safe and ensure your cleanliness to control this outbreak. Avoid going crowded places and temporary less travel.

You can visit the live update website https://www.outbreak.my to get the latest update of this COCID-19 outbreak.

Expanding the root partition always a challenge without any proper knowledge and skills. Tools available in Server Edition like parted and Desktop Edition like gparted. There also a very great tools to used when you are using the Desktop Edition. What about Server Edition. It cannot be a easy way to expand it without unmount the root partition. By default, you cannot unmount root partition. It become the challenging area how you can expand the root partition without any unmount and reboot server to maintenance mode (DVD ISO Boot).

I have done a search on the internet, there have another great tool can solved the issues. It normally uses at Cloud Servers. Many people ask is it working on own premise Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Server? The answer is Yes, you can used this Cloud Utilities Tool. Below is the simple step to expand root partition.

sudo apt -y install cloud-guest-utils



this command is to install the Cloud Utilities Tool into your Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Before you begin expand your root partition. You need to extend your storage at the virtualize server storage.

lsblk



this command is to show your physical storage size and partition. This show my primary storage (/dev/sda) has 100GB Disk allocation. The root partition has allocated in the primary partition (sda1) of the primary storage (/dev/sda). It has 20GB disk space haven been allocated. We now used this tool to expand the root partition.

sudo growpart /dev/sda 1



this execute the “Growpart” tool in the Cloud utilities Tools. It show you will extend the primary storage (/dev/sda) with the primary patition (1)

sudo resize2fs /dev/sda1



this execute “resize2fs” tool to expand the primary storage in primary storage (/dev/sda1). Once to done you will see the root partition been expanded without unmount the root partition drive. You can simply run lsblk or df -h to verified your root partition successfully expanded.

There have many people asking is there anywhere to configure IP Address and Host name in the Ubuntu Server. Many people will guide you the normal way to go to /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/hostname.

You will never remember the codes to write in there. This you need to keep the code and save into your personal document. Is there any simple way to do this in the command line base without memories the codes? The answer is Yes. There is a way to simplified it by using this command

sudo nmtui

This command can have graphic interface in Command line. Below is the screen capture will look like

Orico 3139U3 is a 3.5-inch Transparent USB3.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure. It come with a 12V with 2A power adapter. As the specification, it can handle up to 10TB of Hard Disk Storage. As I used this for my old 3.5 Inch SATA 1TB Western Digital Hard Disk where it been used at my 10 years old Workstation.



You will not need any tools to install External Hard Disk into this External Hard Drive Enclosure. It just easily slides open and insert the Hard Disk. All this took me less than 1 minutes to install and deploy. The connection to the Computer is a USB Type A to USB3.0 Micro-B Connector.



It has a power button to turn on and turn off the External Hard Drive Enclosure. You will see Blue light on. It means the External Hard Drive Enclosure been power on. When you read or write any files, the red light will blink. It will indicate the External Hard Drive Enclosure have activities in progress.

As it written this External Hard Drive Enclosure has many safety features like Over Current and Voltage Protection, Overheating Protection, Short Circuit Protection, Electric Leakage Protection and Clutter Protection.



The quality build looks good as the circuit board seem clean and well soldered. For the transparent casing it looks flimsy maybe they are using the different type of plastic to transmit the heat out from the Hard Disk. It doesn’t have any fan and it is using SATA III (5Gbps) as their transfer mode in this External Hard Drive Enclosure.

Orico OVU3-7U is a Superspeed USB3.0 PCI-Express Card where it has 7 3.0 USB Ports. Buy this is to connect all my 5 units of External Hard disk and 2 Portable Devices for Data Synchronization. As I am doing the file transfer to the External Storage from my internal Hard Disk. It shows a very promising Results. It transfers speed is around 133 MB/s.



As it come with one unit of 4pin Molex to 15pin SATA Connector Drive Power Cable Converter. This is to provide additional power to the USB Connection. Without this the USB will not work if you need the USB power.

This hardware is made from China, the build material look is good. Hope it will never fail me to continue used in my workstation.

There are many questions about how to design a correct Server Infrastructure in the datacenter. Some people claim that you need to follow the market trends then will not get wrong and operation challenges.

To answer this, there don’t have a correct Server Infrastructure in the datacenter design in the market. It all depends on your business strategy and industry requirements. It not only to follow the latest market trends of design but you also need to strategy with your Business Applications and Business Model to proposed a proper Server Infrastructure in the datacenter

Before designing a proper Server Infrastructure in the datacenter, you need to understand how the Servers concepts have been created in the past 20 years. Before explaining, Servers was invented in the year 1942 named Mark One. It is used to make mathematical calculation machines. The Estimated weight of Mark One was 5 tons.

Physical Server

In the beginning of my career, I have been involved in managing Physical Server and it using Microsoft Windows 2000. In this era Application was a design model as Client-Server Architecture. You need the Physical Server to do the important data processing and storage where the End-Point Devices like Desktop and Laptop will do the initial data processing.

In this Physical Server Concept initially it is good to manage the Client-Server Architecture model but when the time goes, Storage is the area that becomes the obstacle to growth. It is a pain for the IT Operations people to support adding additional storage by creating multiple Disks with RAID and Physically Disk Partitioning. Hardware Maintenance is also crucial where it didn’t have High Availability. This will need to have a scheduled downtime to do the upgrade and maintenance.

Virtualizing Physical Server

In the IT Operations, Service Level Agreement or we normally call system uptime began to be important. Annual Server Upgrade and Maintenance cannot be predictable. This begins the challenge in IT Operations.

With the help of the Server Virtualization we can easily convert the Physical Server into Virtualization. This is the initial step for servers to mitigate Physical Server proprietary. With this you no need to worry what type of Server Hardware and Drivers needed to be installed if you really needed to change to new hardware. It also can reduce the risk of adding additional storage spaces by just a few clicks in the Virtualization Server.

The benefits of having Server Virtualization is standardizing the Server Hardware Drives and reducing the risk of Server Hardware incompatible. This can reduce the operation cost of purchasing many servers and datacenter utilities like Power Source, Air Conditioner and Datacenter Spaces.

3-Tier Server Architecture

Application Model has begun to evolve from Client-Server Architecture to Web App Server Architecture. This will need many Virtual Servers to provision. As an IT Operations, it has the challenge to predict how much compute and storage required to many Web App Systems. With the reality of Internet Technology, Server Operations required to work around the clock and make sure all the Applications Systems up and running without any downtime. High Availability Solution is needed to meet the very high Service Level Agreement. As experience, many industries are required to have 99.97% uptime in their Service Level Agreement to all their Production Application System.

To overcome these challenges, you needed to have technology like Central Processing Unit (CPU) Virtualization. It also can have multiple Virtual Servers into a Physical Server by using the formula (N+1). It means the number of Physical Server Nodes (N) plus one more Physical Server Node as backup (+1). With the 3-Tier Server Architecture, You can design your Virtualization Physical Server to a modular design. This IT Operation can easily add-on additional compute or storage to meet the expansions.

As for me, 3-Tier Server Architecture can say is the best Server Infrastructure design where operation will easily manage and maintain it in a modular base concept.

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) was introduced to meet some Operations Cost Challenges. It used as a non-critical infrastructure like Development and Staging Virtual Servers. The improvement and stability of the HCI Solution, Many industries have begun to introduce it to used in their Production Application System.

HCI Solution is a design for Software Defined Datacenter where you can deploy at your Main Datacenter and your Disaster Recovery Datacenter. It can utilize Software Appliance like Networking, System Security and System High Availability with lower initial hardware cost compared with 3-Tier Server Architecture. It also can have multiple Virtual Servers into a Physical Server by using the formula (2N+1). It means the minimum of 2units Physical Server Nodes (2N) plus one more Physical Server Node as backup (+1).

Hybrid Datacenter

As my experience, 3-Tier Server Architecture and HCI Solution is nearly the same infrastructure concept. But you need to comply with the (2N+1) Rules or not it will be a nightmare to manage and support the Infrastructure. With the Software Defined Network Solution, you can integrate 3-Tier Architecture together with HCI and in-future Cloud Platform. Thanks to Layer 2 over Layer 3 Network Architecture. It has resolved many challenges in the Application where there are challenges in Software Licensing.

There are some Application Software License is lockdown but MAC Address or IP Address or both, this can be easily resolved by using Layer 2 over Layer 3 Network Architecture. You can Cross Storage Cluster Platform between 2 datacenters. With the Application, Security, Network and Server Infrastructure virtualized into Software Defined Infrastructure, it can create a very flexible Server Infrastructure in the datacenter.

Cloud Platform

There are many Cloud Platform Companies in the Market. There are local and global companies who provide these services. Cloud is just another datacenter where people own and manage. You just put your data into their datacenter and you only manage your applications data. Others will be managed by the cloud vendors with pay-per-use payment.

As my findings, not all the applications you design and develop can go well with clouds. It's all about comparing your Applications and the operation bills you needed to spend with. Your applications needed to be lightweight and less compute requirement than cloud is the place to go with. If your applications are heavy compute requirements, you need to compare whether it is worth putting it in the cloud or host in your datacenter. Container Based Applications Architecture or normally people call Serverless Architecture where it used API Concept to process data transactions

Summary

There have listed 6 design methods of Server Infrastructure in the datacenter. There is no need to decide which method to go with. Are the Applications like Client-Server, Web-Apps or Container Based Applications Architecture that require in your industry fit in either one of the 6 design methods.

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