How to take out an Oleander

If you are buying a new house and you see Oleander don't buy it! I had five Oleander plants in my backyard. At times they have been around 20 feet high. I was pruning them twice a year and the things would just grow back stronger and stronger. This got old quickly and now I hate them with a passion. Luckily, Oleander Leaf Scorch finally arrived in my neighborhood and gave me the justification and upper hand in destroying these poisonous and invasive plants. The seemly invincible Oleander is no more.

The tools I used:
1. Echo CS-305 chainsaw. I love this little gas powered saw. It is light and can get into some tough to reach areas.
2. Heavy pry bar with an edge on it.
3. Axe
4. Shovel
5. Spade
6. Sledge
7. Protective Eye wear, Mask



This is not an easy job and it takes a whole day for me to cut down and dig out ONE plant by myself. You will feel like giving up but the key is to just keep working it. The roots run on the surface all the way down to about 18". Be aware that this is a VERY poisonous plant so keep your animals away from roots, saw dust etc...

Cut the tree down to about 3 feet in height with your chainsaw, getting as close to the root ball as you can on the sides. You'll want to leave some branches in place for leverage when you start to push and pull it loose later.

Start digging until you hit some roots. Use your axe or pry bar to sever them one by one. Make sure your first cut is close to the root ball when dealing with them. If you cut away from the tree you will end up having roots in the way (and have to make another cut) when you excavate and clear dirt with your shovel. Keep doing this and work all sides of the tree. You will have to circle it many times over until you have exposed the entire root ball and can make deep stabs under it with your pry bar. It also helps to hose off the roots so you can see what you are working with.

The ESRI Software Development Conference 2009

I just got back from ESRI's software development conference in Palm Springs, CA. This is my first ESRI flavored development conference, having attended their User Conference last year in San Diego which I actually liked better because of the exhibits and real world use cases by people out in the field. Maybe its just me but I felt a lack of real developer exposure.

I should probably first say that I come from an open source background. I use Python, OpenLayers, Mapnik, Cairo, TileCache, Nginx, Postgis and Django at the moment for my mapping applications. This toolset requires a granular understanding of what does what, but once you get on top of the learning curve things seem to come naturally and easily with any challenge your map applications may present to you. You really can't beat posting a message to the openlayers, tilecache or mapnik user mailing lists and having a Christopher Schmidt or any of the other great contributors of the projects fire back a response. This is my preference, and I will openly admit that I take a highly negative angle on all things ESRI, mostly because I am new to their development tools and partly because I can accomplish most of what I want without them for free($) and have the bonus satisfaction of giving back to the community where I can. I was happy to see Frank Warmerdam of GDAL and PROJ.4 fame and also an OpenLayers demo at the conference. That gave me a warm feeling.

From the opening presentation to closing talks, all of the presenters seemed very positive. The attitude clearly shows through its users as well. They are a happy, easy going crowd (I had fun at the party up until they started serving bud lite so I had to leave). I didn't see much arguing or open disdain for one another. It kinda reminds me of a time I went to church for a friend's wedding. The "we are all in the same boat" type of feeling echoed through many of the presentations and #devsummit tweets. The Kool-Aid was flowing for sure. This is in stark contrast to a Plone conference I attended a few years back where the hallway was often composed of groups of people openly yelling at each other like mad scientists. I was missing that here (the attitude). When you are in the open source world you have a feeling that you are in control of your own destiny and that you can easily contribute code and ideas and shape things. Users are empowered and they will tell you what they think. Next time I might try to tag along with some of the more vocal tweeters and not take such an outsider stance and get some first hand knowledge from people whom have been in the trenches for a while.

Demos

The first demo I saw was an earthquake map demo, which didn't even have the earthquake that people felt that very morning originating in the Salton Sea because they were working off of stale data, probably taken from the USGS web site which they happen to provide as georss. It summed up a couple of things for me. One, that ESRI is using a lot of smoke and mirrors with their data to make it look fast (understandable) and two, they are trying to manufacture a sense of necessity. Creating a georss based map in OpenLayers is ridiculously simple and I would have taken the chance to show live data. I just thought that was odd.

The Keynote

The keynote, REST vs. SOAP seemed a little strange to me as well. I read this article once a year to immunize myself to these sorts of presentations. David Chappell certainly did a great job of laying things out and creating a picture of what they are and are not. Mission accomplished. To me, REST is just a fancy way of describing http. I was thinking to myself, "Oh this is just an attempt at trying to monetize something through marketing jargon". Its funny how SOAP and REST actually don't stand for anything relevant isn't it? I am much more comfortable describing something as being "restful" rather than this is this, and that is that. If you have worked with something like Django or CherryPy you probably are designing restful applications naturally because they have great url design patterns. This is REST? Ok, great! Also, just because you say "enterprise" a hundred times doesn't make me any more interested in SOAP FYI.

Release cycles

I often heard presenters speaking of 9.3.1 and beyond (not released). Things were so forward looking that they often spoke of future releases on top of not yet released software, as they did in the "looking ahead in 9.4" session where the presenter said that some of this stuff will be in 9.4.1. The future is bright, in fact it is so bright that we won't even talk about how you are doing stuff right now! When I encounter a road block in the open source world I immediately switch to trunk and often find all the problems have already been addressed and go on my way. You can search tickets and find contributed patches pretty easily as well. You have to be careful running on the cutting edge but with caution and good decision making it isn't a big deal. It is all about control. I wonder what they talked about last year...

Social Networks

There was some talk about social networking and how the ESRI GIS community hasn't widely adopted it. I whole heartily agree and kudos to the presenters who put a spotlight on this. The lack of community and user interaction is something that ESRI will have to address. I've been working with open source for a while now and I couldn't imagine not having my mailing lists and reading all the great contributions and free flow of ideas. This is not copy+paste stuff. It is people thinking through problems and really understanding what they are working with. Too put it short, the conference seemed very heavy on Leaky Abstractions. The accessibility and community of open source really helps people figure stuff out and help avoid this. ESRI also put some effort into marketing their online resource center but I have always found their documentation weak and hard to navigate compared to jquery or the google maps api docs. Something is offsetting about their design and presentation. I want to see docs or something I can easily subscribe to! Not pages with links to other pages, forums and not knowing where the heck I am going. Code galleries with ratings are lame!

Conclusion

I am happy that they chose python as their language of choice because I am a fan but I felt it a little constrictive within the arcmap program. I would have liked to see an example of python completely outside arcmap, because that is what I do now with sdo_geometries through psycopg2 and or cx_Oracle db connections. The conference got me thinking about stuff which is the point (I think) but I'm still wondering if it was worth it.

Fish Creek Wash, Borrego Springs archival footage (never seen before!)

You'll probably have to save the files to your computer first, on mine the video kinda stops working after a few seconds. Right click and save then play it from your hard drive for the best results. My favorite is the third video "Rachelle leaves the camera rolling". There are some amazing one-time events in that one.

Introduction
Download Me

The dogs are ready
Download Me

Rachelle leaves the camera rolling
Download Me

Heavy breathing jam session
Download Me

Nate brings it home then eric officially becomes a hippy
Download Me

Whole Lotta Love, by Def Leppard (now a famous quote).
Download Me

Respect the Didg

I'm trying to learn how to circular breath. I'm getting it but I have no stamina and my breathing coordination is still flabby.

Didg Audio

Grids, Resolutions in OpenLayers

Dealing with resolutions in OpenLayers can be a source of major confusion. I still haven't quite grasped what the values actually stand for but I came across a perplexing issue, which ended up having a caveman like fix.

All along I had been using dynamic WMS layers though tilecache to produce a map of EPSG:2230. That is nad83 zone VI in California. To improve performance I created a massive cache of the whole area (roads, imagery, topo, etc...) with TileCache thinking I could just swap all my layers for the static tilecache variety. When switching the layers from Layer.WMS in openlayers to Layer.TileCache my whole map was off by about 18 miles; however the openlayers readout from the cursor position was dead on at the origin of the map. Something wasn't fitting with the resolutions anymore.

To fix it I just set the maxResolution and ditched all of the values in my resolutions array. Turned out the number is roughly 2007.03. I got this by setting control points and eyeballing the cursor because I couldn't find any mathematical way to do it.

    var options = {
        theme: null,
        units: 'ft',
        maxExtent: bounds,
        projection: new OpenLayers.Projection("EPSG:2230"),
        maxResolution: 2007.03,

        controls: [
                   new OpenLayers.Control.MousePosition(),
                   new OpenLayers.Control.MouseDefaults(),
                   new OpenLayers.Control.ScaleLine()
                   ]
    }
    map = new OpenLayers.Map( $('map'), options);

Measuring IO performance of striped vs spanned lvm logical volumes with amazon EBS and EC2

EBS and LVM
I've been dabbling with amazon's EC2 for a few months now since their EBS (elastic block store) service became available. It allows you to connect any number of virtual devices of up to 1 terabyte each to your EC2 instance and persist the data. When striping across multiple EBS volumes you get superior IO performance than that of the local EC2 file system which I found to be quite cool. In random read and writing situations (databases) this becomes more pronounced.

(read up on lvm terminology here because the following is ultra confusing).

Setting up a striped logical volume
It is best to diagram things before you start and make some good estimates of how much space you need. Here I have 4 EBS devices (I attached them through elastic fox) of 200G each grouped together to form a 420G logical volume mounted to /mnt/data.

"PV" stands for "Physical Volume"

+--[ Volume Group ]--+
|  +-----[PV]-----+  |
|  |EBS|EBS|EBS|EBS| |
|  +--+---+---+---+  |
|      |   |   |     |
|      |   |   |     |
|    +-+---+---+-+   |
|    |  Logical  |   |
|    |  Volume   |   |
|    |           |   |
|    | /mnt/data |   |
|    +-----------+   |
+--------------------+

So how does one actually get to this point where you are happily processing data at /mnt/data?
(Note: If you are testing you probably don't want to create as many EBS volumes that are as large as mine. You could easily test it only striping 2 devices with a much smaller storage size.)

Create your physical volumes:

# pvcreate  /dev/sdh
pvcreate -- physical volume "/dev/sdh" successfully created
# pvcreate  /dev/sdi
pvcreate -- physical volume "/dev/sdi" successfully created
# pvcreate  /dev/sdj
pvcreate -- physical volume "/dev/sdj" successfully created
# pvcreate  /dev/sdk
pvcreate -- physical volume "/dev/sdk" successfully created

Create your volume group:

# vgcreate vg1 /dev/sdh /dev/sdi /dev/sdj /dev/sdk

Create your logical volume (here you can choose striped or not. The -i4 tells lvm to stripe across the devices):

# lvcreate -i4 -I4 -L420G -n data vg1

Create the filesystem on your volume group:

# yes | mkfs -t ext3 /dev/vg1/data

Mount it (note you must do a vgchange -a y /dev/vg1 if it is not active)!

# mkdir /mnt/data
# mount /dev/vg1/data /mnt/data

That is the BASICS of it. To do a non-striped volume just take out the "-i4" in the lvcreate step. Here is a good post on amazon of a striped setup.

Good planning goes a long way with striped volumes
After going through all this it turned out that striped volumes can be a pain to manage. When you run out of space, you can increase the size right? Well...if your volume is striped this isn't so easy and it takes a long time to resize or move anything. I had to take a snapshot of the current devices, increase the size of each EBS device, then extend the logical volume and filesystem to the new extents. I also could have used pvmove to an entirely new set of larger EBS devices but that takes FOREVER. It isn't apples to apples either when increasing the size of your devices. You can't just increase each device by 100G and have a bunch of new storage with a striped volume. lvm has to account for the striping which doesn't allow you to take advantage of all that new space. When sticking to striped volumes it is probably best to just create a brand new logical volume with larger devices and "dd" it to the new setup.

Spanned is easier to grow
On a spanned lvm you can just add a device with x amount of space and extend the logical volume to it. Its quite simple and very flexible. So in my case I actually decided to switch from striped to spanned for future storage needs, which required an overnight "dd" of the logical volumes of the striped one to the non-striped one.

# dd if=/dev/vg1 of=/dev/vg2 bs=1024

I ended up with 2 setups. One striped, one spanned which led me to the reason for this post. The physical extents of the 2 logical volumes were the same so you should be able to compare the tests and see where striped excels over non-striped.

Finally, the data! Notice how on m1.small instances striped is actually slower.

m1.small instance with non-striped logical volume:

 Iozone: Performance Test of File I/O
         Version $Revision: 3.239 $
  Compiled for 32 bit mode.
  Build: linux

 Contributors:William Norcott, Don Capps, Isom Crawford, Kirby Collins
              Al Slater, Scott Rhine, Mike Wisner, Ken Goss
              Steve Landherr, Brad Smith, Mark Kelly, Dr. Alain CYR,
              Randy Dunlap, Mark Montague, Dan Million,
              Jean-Marc Zucconi, Jeff Blomberg,
              Erik Habbinga, Kris Strecker, Walter Wong.

 Run began: Fri Jan  2 11:35:41 2009

 Excel chart generation enabled
 Record Size 4 KB
 File size set to 102400 KB
 Command line used: iozone -R -l 5 -u 5 -r 4k -s 100m -F /mnt/data/f1 /mnt/data/f2 /mnt/data/f3 /mnt/data/f4 /mnt/data/f5
 Output is in Kbytes/sec
 Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.
 Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.
 Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.
 File stride size set to 17 * record size.
 Min process = 5
 Max process = 5
 Throughput test with 5 processes
 Each process writes a 102400 Kbyte file in 4 Kbyte records

 Children see throughput for  5 initial writers  =  187023.40 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 initial writers  =   16002.41 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  157944.02 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   37404.68 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for  5 rewriters  =  239558.47 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 rewriters  =   51924.69 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  239558.47 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   47911.69 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for  5 readers   =  398622.72 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 readers   =  284322.27 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  283237.56 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   79724.54 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 re-readers  =  392394.52 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 re-readers  =  274542.58 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  265021.97 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   78478.90 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 reverse readers  =  414629.55 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 reverse readers  =  272372.02 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  292011.69 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   82925.91 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 stride readers  =  334959.46 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 stride readers  =  248618.43 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  243286.45 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   66991.89 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 random readers  =  370372.30 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 random readers  =  259770.55 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  267395.03 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   74074.46 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 mixed workload  =  331567.03 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 mixed workload  =   19355.73 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  238917.91 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   66313.41 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 random writers  =  292373.63 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 random writers  =   10503.29 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  196960.98 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   58474.73 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 pwrite writers  =  154835.77 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 pwrite writers  =    9407.53 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  152950.20 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   30967.15 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 pread readers  =  363816.23 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 pread readers  =  280161.30 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  251250.73 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   72763.25 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB



"Throughput report Y-axis is type of test X-axis is number of processes"
"Record size = 4 Kbytes "
"Output is in Kbytes/sec"

"  Initial write "  187023.40

"        Rewrite "  239558.47

"           Read "  398622.72

"        Re-read "  392394.52

"   Reverse Read "  414629.55

"    Stride read "  334959.46

"    Random read "  370372.30

" Mixed workload "  331567.03

"   Random write "  292373.63

"         Pwrite "  154835.77

"          Pread "  363816.23


iozone test complete.

m1.small striped volume

 Iozone: Performance Test of File I/O
         Version $Revision: 3.239 $
  Compiled for 32 bit mode.
  Build: linux

 Contributors:William Norcott, Don Capps, Isom Crawford, Kirby Collins
              Al Slater, Scott Rhine, Mike Wisner, Ken Goss
              Steve Landherr, Brad Smith, Mark Kelly, Dr. Alain CYR,
              Randy Dunlap, Mark Montague, Dan Million,
              Jean-Marc Zucconi, Jeff Blomberg,
              Erik Habbinga, Kris Strecker, Walter Wong.

 Run began: Fri Jan  2 12:05:01 2009

 Excel chart generation enabled
 Record Size 4 KB
 File size set to 102400 KB
 Command line used: iozone -R -l 5 -u 5 -r 4k -s 100m -F /mnt/data/f1 /mnt/data/f2 /mnt/data/f3 /mnt/data/f4 /mnt/data/f5
 Output is in Kbytes/sec
 Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.
 Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.
 Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.
 File stride size set to 17 * record size.
 Min process = 5
 Max process = 5
 Throughput test with 5 processes
 Each process writes a 102400 Kbyte file in 4 Kbyte records

 Children see throughput for  5 initial writers  =   86285.44 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 initial writers  =   28773.78 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =     772.48 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =   42287.14 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   17257.09 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =    1968.00 KB

 Children see throughput for  5 rewriters  =  209820.41 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 rewriters  =   67799.52 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  183882.92 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   41964.08 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for  5 readers   =  384281.12 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 readers   =  277150.84 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  278263.12 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   76856.22 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 re-readers  =  394761.81 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 re-readers  =  291834.15 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  274267.53 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   78952.36 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 reverse readers  =  372123.29 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 reverse readers  =  256665.24 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  271307.94 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   74424.66 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 stride readers  =  358034.52 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 stride readers  =  242324.43 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  269100.50 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   71606.90 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 random readers  =  330870.57 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 random readers  =  247094.18 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  241531.08 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   66174.11 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 mixed workload  =  328983.32 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 mixed workload  =   39118.17 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  242003.17 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   65796.66 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 random writers  =  232506.66 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 random writers  =   20833.49 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  163643.38 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   46501.33 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 pwrite writers  =   81293.22 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 pwrite writers  =   23243.61 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =   34714.85 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   16258.64 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 pread readers  =  382418.62 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 pread readers  =  271349.91 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  279262.66 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   76483.73 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB



"Throughput report Y-axis is type of test X-axis is number of processes"
"Record size = 4 Kbytes "
"Output is in Kbytes/sec"

"  Initial write "   86285.44

"        Rewrite "  209820.41

"           Read "  384281.12

"        Re-read "  394761.81

"   Reverse Read "  372123.29

"    Stride read "  358034.52

"    Random read "  330870.57

" Mixed workload "  328983.32

"   Random write "  232506.66

"         Pwrite "   81293.22

"          Pread "  382418.62


iozone test complete.

m1.large ec2 instance with non-striped logical volume

 Iozone: Performance Test of File I/O
         Version $Revision: 3.239 $
  Compiled for 64 bit mode.
  Build: linux

 Contributors:William Norcott, Don Capps, Isom Crawford, Kirby Collins
              Al Slater, Scott Rhine, Mike Wisner, Ken Goss
              Steve Landherr, Brad Smith, Mark Kelly, Dr. Alain CYR,
              Randy Dunlap, Mark Montague, Dan Million,
              Jean-Marc Zucconi, Jeff Blomberg,
              Erik Habbinga, Kris Strecker, Walter Wong.

 Run began: Fri Jan  2 11:49:08 2009

 Excel chart generation enabled
 Record Size 4 KB
 File size set to 102400 KB
 Command line used: iozone -R -l 5 -u 5 -r 4k -s 100m -F /mnt/data/f1 /mnt/data/f2 /mnt/data/f3 /mnt/data/f4 /mnt/data/f5
 Output is in Kbytes/sec
 Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.
 Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.
 Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.
 File stride size set to 17 * record size.
 Min process = 5
 Max process = 5
 Throughput test with 5 processes
 Each process writes a 102400 Kbyte file in 4 Kbyte records

 Children see throughput for  5 initial writers  =  353553.99 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 initial writers  =   11335.09 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =     534.41 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  346674.53 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   70710.80 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =     172.00 KB

 Children see throughput for  5 rewriters  =  599928.81 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 rewriters  =   55151.89 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  599928.81 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  119985.76 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for  5 readers   =  838589.25 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 readers   =  816307.43 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  838589.25 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  167717.85 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 re-readers  =  788784.06 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 re-readers  =  772101.46 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  788784.06 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  157756.81 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 reverse readers  =  624249.62 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 reverse readers  =  611193.75 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  624249.62 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  124849.93 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 stride readers  =  599468.25 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 stride readers  =  587206.39 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  599468.25 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  119893.65 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 random readers  =  873144.40 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 random readers  =  573393.14 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =   43202.99 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  353544.78 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  174628.88 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =    2580.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 mixed workload  =  602490.56 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 mixed workload  =   11956.89 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  602490.56 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  120498.11 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 random writers  =  471046.94 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 random writers  =    5770.39 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  471046.94 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   94209.39 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 pwrite writers  =  362352.69 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 pwrite writers  =   15619.58 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =    8620.63 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  240152.98 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   72470.54 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =    4148.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 pread readers  =  883284.12 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 pread readers  =  855137.12 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  883284.12 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  176656.83 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB



"Throughput report Y-axis is type of test X-axis is number of processes"
"Record size = 4 Kbytes "
"Output is in Kbytes/sec"

"  Initial write "  353553.99

"        Rewrite "  599928.81

"           Read "  838589.25

"        Re-read "  788784.06

"   Reverse Read "  624249.62

"    Stride read "  599468.25

"    Random read "  873144.40

" Mixed workload "  602490.56

"   Random write "  471046.94

"         Pwrite "  362352.69

"          Pread "  883284.12


iozone test complete.

m1.large striped volume

 Iozone: Performance Test of File I/O
         Version $Revision: 3.239 $
  Compiled for 64 bit mode.
  Build: linux

 Contributors:William Norcott, Don Capps, Isom Crawford, Kirby Collins
              Al Slater, Scott Rhine, Mike Wisner, Ken Goss
              Steve Landherr, Brad Smith, Mark Kelly, Dr. Alain CYR,
              Randy Dunlap, Mark Montague, Dan Million,
              Jean-Marc Zucconi, Jeff Blomberg,
              Erik Habbinga, Kris Strecker, Walter Wong.

 Run began: Fri Jan  2 11:56:02 2009

 Excel chart generation enabled
 Record Size 4 KB
 File size set to 102400 KB
 Command line used: iozone -R -l 5 -u 5 -r 4k -s 100m -F /mnt/data/f1 /mnt/data/f2 /mnt/data/f3 /mnt/data/f4 /mnt/data/f5
 Output is in Kbytes/sec
 Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.
 Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.
 Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.
 File stride size set to 17 * record size.
 Min process = 5
 Max process = 5
 Throughput test with 5 processes
 Each process writes a 102400 Kbyte file in 4 Kbyte records

 Children see throughput for  5 initial writers  =  160335.02 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 initial writers  =    4435.26 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.84 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  123694.65 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   32067.00 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       4.00 KB

 Children see throughput for  5 rewriters  =  596176.44 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 rewriters  =   85744.12 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  596176.44 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  119235.29 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for  5 readers   =  791896.38 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for  5 readers   =  770880.57 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  791896.38 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  158379.27 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 re-readers  =  787970.81 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 re-readers  =  767317.71 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  787970.81 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  157594.16 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 reverse readers  =  696272.12 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 reverse readers  =  679581.49 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  696272.12 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  139254.42 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 stride readers  =  680316.69 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 stride readers  =  665678.13 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  680316.69 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  136063.34 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 random readers  =  669859.00 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 random readers  =  658161.12 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  669859.00 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  133971.80 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 mixed workload  =  670494.81 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 mixed workload  =   29356.20 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  670494.81 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  134098.96 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 random writers  =  492525.84 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 random writers  =   15895.21 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  492525.84 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   98505.17 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 pwrite writers  =  186032.25 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 pwrite writers  =    3831.68 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  184455.38 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =   37206.45 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB

 Children see throughput for 5 pread readers  =  878841.56 KB/sec
 Parent sees throughput for 5 pread readers  =  854188.13 KB/sec
 Min throughput per process    =       0.00 KB/sec
 Max throughput per process    =  878841.56 KB/sec
 Avg throughput per process    =  175768.31 KB/sec
 Min xfer      =       0.00 KB



"Throughput report Y-axis is type of test X-axis is number of processes"
"Record size = 4 Kbytes "
"Output is in Kbytes/sec"

"  Initial write "  160335.02

"        Rewrite "  596176.44

"           Read "  791896.38

"        Re-read "  787970.81

"   Reverse Read "  696272.12

"    Stride read "  680316.69

"    Random read "  669859.00

" Mixed workload "  670494.81

"   Random write "  492525.84

"         Pwrite "  186032.25

"          Pread "  878841.56


iozone test complete.

How to cancel your vonage service

I've posted this with the hopes that you don't have to exert as much energy as I did when trying to cancel your vonage account. There is no online option for cancellation so unfortunately you have to go through their medieval phone tree process which can take up to 30 minutes. There are many booby traps along the way and it feels as if you are being baited into answering questions that just prolong your time on the phone, therefor increasing your chance of giving up or losing reception and having to do the same process again. If you have any improvements or would like to post your time to cancellation that would be fun.

1. Before starting you must have your PIN number handy. This is the number you use to check voice mail with your vonage service. Not knowing this number, or answering "yes" to the "have you used the online service before" question can cost you another round of phone tree time.

2. Call 1-866-243-4357
3. Wait for fake human to stop talking
4. Enter your vonage phone number through the key pad (voice doesn't work well)
5. Wait for voice to stop...say "My Account"
6. Wait for voice to stop...say "Yes"
7. Wait for voice to stop...say "Cancel my service"
8. Wait... Tell real human your vonage phone number
9. Tell human your PIN number.
10. Tell human you want to cancel your account. Any other questions they ask just say "I decline to state".
11. When they ask you if you can be put on hold say "yes" (this is their attempt at getting you to hang up or disconnect)
12. Say no to all of the special offers.
13. You will be asked to be put on hold again. Say "yes"
14. Write down the confirmation number, you should be done.


vonage_cancel.mp3