Category: News

Jul 08 2011

Patching VMware ESXi Installable

ESXi 4.1 brought changes to the patching process. Previously, the Host Update utility — an application included with the vSphere Client — could patch ESXi 4.0 hosts. VMware removed Host Update from ESXi 4.1, presumably to encourage users to upgrade to paid versions that are managed and patched with vCenter Server’s Update Manager. As a result, the only method left to patch the free version of ESXi is with the vihostupdate command-line utility, which is included in the vSphere Command-Line Interface (CLI).

Before using this method, it’s important to understand how the patches work and where to find them.

Read the full article at searchvmware.com…

Share This:

Jul 08 2011

Installing and configuring VMware ESXi

VMware announced that ESXi will be the exclusive hypervisor of vSphere 5. As such, we will likely see a greater adoption of VMware’s smaller hypervisor.

ESXi can be either embedded on a server (boot from flash) or installed on existing servers, using the Installable version. The free version of ESXi, the VMware vSphere Hypervisor, includes support for virtual symmetric multiprocessing (vSMP) and thin provisioning. No additional features are included, which means the free version of ESXi cannot be managed by vCenter Server, because it does not include a vCenter Server agent. To gain additional features and a vCenter Server agent, you need to upgrade your ESXi license.

The ESXi installation uses about 5 GB of space. Any remaining space on the drive is automatically formatted as a Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) partition. The hypervisor needs roughly 32 MB; the additional space is used for VMware Tools as well as swap and core dump partitions.

If you already have existing licenses for ESX, you can also choose to deploy ESXi in place of ESX on a server. Simply download ESXi installable. Install it and then license it with vCenter Server, as you would a traditional ESX server. Follow the steps below to install and configure ESXi.

Read the full article at searchvmware.com…

Share This:

Jul 08 2011

CapacityIQ: Installing VMware’s capacity planning tool

VMware vCenter CapacityIQ is a capacity planning tool that adds much-needed reporting features to vCenter Server. While the installation process is pretty straightforward, some subtle configuration choices can optimize CapacityIQ deployment.

CapacityIQ seamlessly integrates with vCenter Server, and it offers detailed infrastructure metrics, such as CPU, memory and disk I/O. This capacity planning tool offers information so VMware administrators can plan for future capacity, control VM sprawl and streamline resource usage.

The installation and configuration requires you to download the appliance and set up the storage and networking. When linking CapacityIQ to vCenter Server, you’ll designate which hosts and virtual machines should be analyzed by adjusting vCenter Server permissions.

Read the full article at searchvmware.com…

Share This:

Jul 08 2011

Top five lessons learned from a virtualization veteran

I’ve been involved with virtualization for almost six years now, and I’m still learning new things about the technology — and the community around it — every day.

The major benefits of virtualization are well known to even the most novice users, but some of its gotchas and drawbacks only become apparent through years of experience. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned during my years working with virtualization:

100% virtualization: Not always a good thing
Being 100% virtualized may give you bragging rights, but it’s not always practical. I learned this one the hard way during a data center power outage.

Leaving some core infrastructure components, such as DNS, DHCP and Active Directory, on physical servers can get you up and running more quickly in the event of a major problem. Virtual hosts are typically dependent on other infrastructure components, and if those components are not available, it can prevent your hosts from starting properly.

Being 96% virtualized is good enough. I like having the safety net of part of my critical infrastructure running on physical servers.

Read the full article at searchvmware.com…

Share This:

Jul 07 2011

Register for VMware’s special event on 7/12 or else…

… Mr. T will come whoop your butt.

mr-t-712

Seriously though, if you’re involved in virtualization in any way, VMware’s special event on 7/12 is one you really can’t afford to miss. VMware is being vague on what the event is about but you should be able to put two and three together and come up with five. The reason VMware is being purposely vague is because their lawyers told to them be (yeah it sucks being a public company sometimes). But just because you came up with five doesn’t tell the whole story, you’re probably expecting to hear about something related to five but their is much more to it than that. VMware will be making more announcements than you will be expecting and you definitely want to hear what they have to say.

I am one of four bloggers invited to attend the event live, it is not being held in Palo Alto like the vSphere announcement was but instead in San Francisco much like an Apple event. The event starts at 9:00am PST and will go for until about 12:00 PST, below is the schedule for everything:

  • 9:00-9:45 Paul and Steve present – live online streaming
  • 10:00-12:00 three tracks of deep dive breakout sessions
  • 10:00-12:00 live Q&A with VMware cloud and virtualization experts

After the event David Davis & I are going to try and get some Q&A time with Steve Herrod and record a live vChat, so if you have any questions for him send them to us. So register now, seriously you don’t want to miss this one, their are some exciting times ahead for VMware!

2011-07-05_201925

Share This:

Jun 16 2011

VCenter CapacityIQ by the numbers

Host resources are a precious commodity in virtual infrastructures. To maximize your return on investment and the benefits of virtualization, you must make the most of them.

VMware vCenter CapacityIQ reports on CPU, memory and disk I/O usage, which enables you to right-size vSphere infrastructure and prevent common virtualization challenges, such as virtual machine (VM) sprawl.

CapacityIQ is available as a standalone product and is also bundled with vCenter Operations, VMware’s new operations management software. At some point, CapacityIQ and Operations may merge into a single product. Until then, here’s what VMware’s resource-reporting and planning tool can do.

The capabilities of vCenter CapacityIQ
VCenter CapacityIQ is a pre-built virtual appliance, deployed from an Open Virtualization File format, so it can be exported directly into vCenter Server. VCenter CapacityIQ focuses on three areas in vSphere:

Read the full article at searchvmware.com…

Share This:

Jun 16 2011

My updated series on VMware Snapshots

I did a 3-part series on VMware snapshots years ago for Tech Target that was based on VI3, I recently updated the series to include changes that have occurred with the technology since the release of vSphere.

Part 1 – How VMware snapshots work

A disk “snapshot” is a copy of the virtual machine disk file (VMDK) at a certain point in time. It preserves the disk file system and system memory of your VM by enabling you to revert to the snapshot in case something goes wrong. Snapshots can be real lifesavers when upgrading or patching applications and servers. This article will go over everything you need to know about using snapshots with VMware, including what they are, how they work and advanced techniques.

Snapshot disk space used and rate of growth
If you create more than one snapshot of your virtual machine (VM), then you’ll have multiple restore points available to revert to. When you create a snapshot, what was currently writable becomes read-only from that point on. Using in-file delta technology, new files are created that contain all changes (delta) to the original disk files.

The size of a snapshot file can never exceed the size of the original disk file. Any time a disk block is changed, the snapshot is created in the delta file and simply updated as changes are made. If you changed every single disk block on your server after taking a snapshot, your snapshot would still be the same size as your original disk file. But there’s some additional overhead disk space that contains information used to manage the snapshots. The maximum overhead disk space varies and it’s based on the Virtual Machine Files System block size.

Read the full article at searchvmware.com…

Part 2 – Deleting virtual machine snapshots without wasting disk space

Taking snapshots of your virtual machines (VMs) is a useful way to preserve and restore VM configurations. But proper management is needed to avoid performance problems. In this tip, we’ll explore advanced snapshot management topics. (For a review of snapshot basics or review how VMware snapshots work, see my previous tip.)

Disk space and deleting multiple snapshots
It’s important to plan ahead and allow for ample disk space on your VMware virtual machine file system (VMFS) volumes for snapshot files. A good rule of thumb is to allow for disk space of at least 20% of the virtual machine’s total disk size. But this amount can vary depending upon the type of server, how long you keep the snapshots, and if you plan on using multiple snapshots. If you plan on including the memory state with your snapshots, you’ll also need to allow for extra disk space equal to amount of RAM assigned to the VM.

A VM with only one snapshot requires no extra disk space when deleting, or committing, it. (The term committing is used because the changes saved in the snapshot’s delta files are now committed to the original virtual machine disk file, or VMDK.) There is also an extra helper delta file that is created when you delete snapshots. It contains any changes that are made to the VM’s disk while the snapshot is deleted. The size of the helper delta file varies and it’s based on how long the snapshot takes to delete. But it’s generally small, because most snapshots are deleted in less than an hour.

Read the full article at searchvmware.com…

Part 3 – Troubleshooting VMware snapshots

Virtualization administrators can use snapshots in vSphere to travel back in time and figure out what went wrong with their virtual machines (VMs). In part one of this series, I discussed how to use VMware snapshots. In part two, I explained how to delete snapshots without wasting disk space. But what do you do when your snapshots start acting funny? In this tip, we’ll troubleshoot potential problems that may come up when using snapshots in vSphere.

Locating VMs that have snapshots
Finding out which VMs have snapshots can be challenging. In VMware Infrastructure 3, there wasn’t a centralized, built-in way to accomplish this task in the vSphere Client or vCenter Server. You had to use methods, such as scripts and command-line utilities, that made locating snapshots difficult. But there were some enhancements in vSphere that made locating snapshots much easier. Here are a few of the methods that you can use.

Method 1: Find command
Use the find command in the ESX service console or ESXi Tech Support Mode

1. Log in to the console.
2. Change to your /vmfs/volumes/ directory.
3. Type find -iname “*-delta.vmdk” -mtime +7 -ls to find snapshot files that have not been modified in seven days or simply find -iname “*-delta.vmdk” to find all snapshot files.

Read the full article at searchvmware.com…

Share This:

Jun 14 2011

Thoughts and observations from HP Discover

I’m back from spending a great week at the HP Discover conference in Las Vegas and I though I would provide my thoughts and observations from it. Before I begin let me disclose that HP paid for all expenses of my trip as part of their program to bring a group of bloggers on site so they could soak up everything at the show and publish their thoughts and opinions on it. So in no particular order here my thoughts and observations from HP Discover:

  • HP reported about 10,000 attendees but that seemed a bit high to me, I’ve been to many VMworlds were attendance has ranged from 11,000 – 17,000 and it didn’t seem close to those numbers. In fact I’ve been to VMworld at the exact same hotel (The Venetian) and it seemed much more crowded.
  • HP has one of the best social media programs that I’ve ever seen, I’ve been to a few HP blogger events and they cover are super organized, well-planned and executed. HP realizes what a valuable resource bloggers are and it shows, they take care of all expenses, even in miscellaneous ones. When I checked in they had a welcome package with information, swag & a HP t-shirt embroidered with twitter handles on the back. They had a fully equipped blogger lounge with lockers, tables, chairs, snacks, drinks and even provided USB cellular dongles for connectivity. They had schedules all printed up with notable events that would be of interest to the bloggers and arranged special coffee-table sessions in the blogger lounge with key HP personnel. In short HP went all out to provide the bloggers everything they need to get the most out of the conference and have an environment to work in. Ivy Worldwide that handles all the logistics for HP does an incredible job.
  • HP had an official conference app for every smartphone including iPhone, Android, WebOS (duh) and Blackberry, this allowed access to your schedule and provided all sorts of information about the show including maps, session and general information. In today’s world this is almost a no-brainer as probably 9 out of 10 attendees has a smartphone. I wish other companies (VMware) would do this as well at their conferences. It served as an invaluable companion during the conference.
  • The # of sessions that were given was off the chart, almost 900 sessions, how can you possibly choose from that many. It made trying to schedule sessions very difficult as their was just way too many to sort through. To make matters worse most of the sessions were not recorded it all, so you either saw it at the conference or not at all. Maybe of the better ones booked up fast that excluded people from attending them. I would much rather see quality over quantity, VMware limits the number of sessions to around 200 and has an extensive process to ensure only the best sessions make the conference.
  • Oracle was playing childish games at the conference, they had signage on many taxes that said Sun was 7x faster than HP, they also had an elaborate see-through van circling the hotel with old HP servers inside and a Cash for Clunkers sign on it. As most of the attendees probably never left the hotel at all during the event most of their efforts were probably wasted any. Why don’t you grow the hell up Oracle, do you really think people make buying decisions based off immature marketing pranks? All you ended up doing is showing your desperation in your efforts to try and win HP customers to switch to your crappy products.
  • I’m primarily a virtualization guy, but I’ve been a very long time user of HP servers and storage devices. It was great to see all the many products first hand and ask questions of the product engineers. HP dominated their vendor exhibition area and probably had almost half the floor space devoted to their products. As you would expect there were only strategic partners and vendors that did not directly compete with HP present which is OK with me. However I found that their was a profound lack of focus on virtualization technologies both in the sessions and in exhibition area. VMware had a pretty small booth with not much on display and few people staffing it and their were very few vendors on hand that focused on virtualization products, Veeam & Vkernel were the only two that I saw there. Given how important virtualization is to the data center and converged infrastructures I would of expected to see a lot more of it at the conference. Even HP didn’t have much focus in that area and I was a bit dis-appointed in what I saw.
  • Web-OS was all the rage at the show given it’s impending release on tablet devices. While I haven’t been a big fan of their web-OS phones mainly due to the lack of apps for it, I think they are going to hit it out of the ballpark with tablets and we will finally have a worthy competitor to the iPad. I currently own an Android tablet (Galaxy Tab) and an iPad and I have not been impressed with the Android tablet at all. From what I’ve seen and heard about the Blackberry playbook I don’t think anyone but RIM is impressed with it as well. The forthcoming HP TouchPad tablet is just plain slick and the price point is right were it needs to be starting at $499 to compete with the iPad. Don’t believe me, check out this video, I know I’ll be getting one. The app ecosystem may not be there today like the iPad but I think we’ll see rapid growth once it is released.
  • The large vendor exhibition area was very dark, when I first walked in I assumed it was closed because of that and almost turned around and walked out. HP turn some lights on in there next time, the dark movie theater lighting didn’t give me a good vibe. There was also a surprisingly lack of booth babes that you typically see at tech conferences which was a nice change, while I enjoy looking they are a bit distracting. I did see at least a few Elvis’s wandering the floor though.
  • HP was showing off their newly announced VirtualSystem which is their converged infrastructure solution built for virtualization and is designed to compete with EMC’s vBlocks and NetApps FlexPods. I was really interested in this but their was a distinct lack of detail into what exactly this solution is. From what little I was able to see and read I see this this is essentially a marketing wrapper placed around a specific configuration of servers and hardware that is designed to be a turnkey, certified virtualization solution. Supposedly it only supports vSphere & Hyper-V right now and support for other hypervisors may be added later on. I read through the fact sheet and solution brief on HP’s site and it was so general it really didn’t tell me what components that the system was comprised of. I hope HP releases more details on this solution so I can find out what makes it tick and how it compares to its competitors.
  • In the storage space, HP seems to be making a big shift to 3Par storage to replace many of their existing storage lines. From what I’ve seen of the 3Par storage units they are top-notch and HP made a wise decision in purchasing them. The 3Par arrays include some unique features and blazing performance that make them very attractive. Besides that yellow & black color scheme can really brighten up a data center and make it pop.
  • If you haven’t seen this cool video yet on HP’s converged infrastructure narrated by Marc Farley, check it out, it’s very nicely done. Speaking of Marc Farley, if you haven’t seen this video yet of him getting down in the restroom it’s definitely worth a view.
  • One thing I wanted to find out more about but didn’t was HP’s StoreOnce deduplication technology, HP has some good white papers published on it here that you can check out.
  • I did get a chance to walk-through HP’s data center in a box solution, the HP Performance Optimized Datacenter (POD), anybody can stick racks in a shipping container but what impressed me most about their POD was the environment controls with adaptive cooling, fire suppression systems, security card readers, energy efficiency and large power capacity. Check out the Quickspecs on the POD, you can also see a video overview of it here.
  • One of the HP coffee table sessions was with the team responsible for re-designing HP’s website who was gathering our feedback to assist them in making design decisions. I’ve almost pulled my hair out a few times trying to find information on HP’s massive website so I can really appreciate what they are trying to do and hope they implement a design that makes finding information much easier.

Well that’s all I have for the moment, I may add more things to this post as they come to me, all in all it was a great event and I was glad that I was able to attend it.

Share This: