I decided not to try and join the legions of bloggers who were attempting to cover the conference in real-time. This year, my family made the trip out with me and so my evenings are filled with family activities as we try to see and as much as possible while we are in San Francisco. So instead of live updates, I’m trying to digest and then make a few notes of the things that stuck out most form the sessions that I’m attending and the announcements that are made. The posts over the upcoming days will be what I’d consider the best of the best after the dust settles from the things I’ve participated in. For many who know me, you know how I loathe 24×7 CNN and MSNBC coverage of stuff, so I’m taking an old-school approach to VMworld 2009…
August 2009
These are not in any order, I take no credit for these or the pictures below.
http://virtualaleph.blogspot.com : VMWorld 2009 San Francisco: Started
“Here’s the video posted by Richard Garsthagen showing us the buildup of VMWorld Datacenter.
Resources in the datacenter are:
– 776 ESX Servers
– 37 Terrabyte internal RAM Memory
– 6208 Cores
– 348 TB of Shared Stora”
—–
http://vmguy.com/wordpress/index.php : And so it begins……VMWorld 2009
Got over to the Moscone Center early this morning. Looking pretty good, cool setup in the foyer:
The lines were not too long yet and moving quickly at the registration counter….
The longest lines I would find were in the VMware Store in Moscone South. Make sure to head over there soon if you want the “big guy” shirts like me…..
—–
http://dantedog29.blogspot.com : First Thoughts on VMworld
Just got back to my Hotel Room after checking in at VMworld, and pretty happy so far. First of all, the bag is nice this year. The past couple of years, the bags have been real throw-aways, but this year, nice.
After registration, I met up with a former colleague on the VMware Compete Team. We walked over to Chevy’s for lunch, and just so happened a few of the other Compete folks were there as well. I was a little nervous when they cornered me in the back and started pulling out their brass knuckles, but was able to get out unscathed. To be honest, when I looked again, the brass knuckles were really a basket of chips, and they offered us to join them at their table.
Actually, it was great to see them, and we spent lunch talking about old times, and how they still use that Memory Overcommit and Cost per Application tacts, while we still focus on (I say we and still use even though I really just started) the tried and true “VMware Tax”, and “Single Pane of Glass” arguments.
Times are changing, but some things, I guess, stay the same.”
—–
http://netapptips.com : VMworld 2009: Today’s Announcements
“
VMworld 2009 is finally here and that means that every vendor will be making announcements about new products, services and partnerships. Trying to keep up with everything can be incredibly complicated, so each day we will dedicate some space on the blog to highlighting the announcements that are most relevant to NetApp customers and partners.
NetApp Expands Management Integration with VMware for Cloud Computing Environments (link)
The foundations of Cloud Computing and next-generation Data Centers are virtualization and automation. NetApp continues to expand our integration with VMware vCenter by enabling RCU 2.1, VSC and SMVI 2.0 as vCenter plug-ins.
NetApp Virtualization Quick Start Bundles Speed Virtualization Deployment (link)
In addition to simplifying the underlying technologies, NetApp is simplifying the purchasing process for customers looking to virtualize, or expand their existing virtualized environments. These bundles align our best practices for virtualizing vSphere infrastructure, Microsoft Business Applications, and Virtual Desktops with technology from our global partners VMware and Cisco.
VMware Continues Its Reign as the Lowest Cost Per Application Leader with VMware vSphere™ 4 (link)
NetApp has consistently proven that we are committed to driving down the overall costs of deploying and managing virtualized Data Centers, and this announcements directly aligns with NetApp’s focus on bringing unmatched reliability, performance and overall cost to joint NetApp & VMware environments.
Broad Virtualization Ecosystem Rallies Behind VMware vCenter™
Product Family to Deliver Integrated Solutions for Simplified
Datacenter Management(link)
Aligned with our announcements today regarding RCU 2.1, SMVI 2.0 and VSC, NetApp continues to align our management of VMware environments with VMware’s future vision.
Leostream Now Enables Enterprise-Class VDI Using Microsoft Virtualization and Management
(link)
As Microsoft’s 2009 Storage Solutions Partner of the Year, Leostream and Microsoft customers will be able to leverage the power of NetApp + Hyper-V integration, NetApp storage savings guarantee for Microsoft Hyper-V, and NetApp’s incredibly efficient storage for Virtualized Desktops. “
—–
And some tweet pictures I have watched roll by today.
Its only been a matter of weeks that I’ve gotten my VCP3. I did it in anticpation that I’d need it to update my skills and certification for vSphere 4 and today, I found confirmation that I did the right thing. I found a page on VMware’s site that details the upgrade path for existing VCP’s – both for VCP2’s and VCP3’s.
I had attended both of the VI3 classes and knew that the classes were a pre-requisite for the VCP certification. And although I’d waited for too long between class and testing, I was still able to pass the exam with a little studying. But, the same might not be true with vSphere 4 with budget constraints and considerations. So, if I didn’t want to lose my education investment, I needed by VCP3.
The good news for existing VCP3’s is that VMware is offering the vSphere 4 exam for you until December 31 without the requirement of taking any additional classes. For anyone who has taken the VI3 classes, you still need to attain the VCP3 first before being able to take the VCP4 test.
VMworld attendees should also note that the test is available at a discount during the conference.
For more information on specifics for your situation, take a look here on VMware’s site.
August is quickly drawing to a close and the last day of the month kicks off the first day of VMworld in San Francisco. The past week has been really busy as I prepare for my trip and try and bring my co-workers up-to-date with what is going on and things that might come up while I’m away.
I’m very excited to be attending VMworld again this year and I’m looking forward to soaking up just as much as possible from the conference. I plan on blogging about some of the sessions and topics I encounter. Last year’s conference in Las Vegas was great and I think my company greatly benefited from the information I was able to get and bring back. We had information months in advance about the then upcoming vSphere version and its capabilities. For anyone who is seriously invested in ESX, its well worth the money to attend.
One thing we’ve been seriously looking at is virtual host management software — something in addition to Virtual Center and something to alert us of what is going on inside of our ESX hosts. In a pipe dream, we’d love a product that is also cross platform, since we’ve added XenServer to our mix this year. We’re looking for software that can do some level of network monitoring and notification about traffic from ESX hosts, that allows us to alert on a wider variety of problems in the ESX environment, but also something to help us answer questions when the arise.
I hope to spend some time in the vendor expo area looking at what solutions are available. We have seen demos and installed evaluations from several companies, but I think we are down to two options – Hyper9 or vFoglight from Vizioncore. Those are two very different products, but each has its own strengths. Ideally, I think both would fit into our environment quite well and both would be useful, but I doubt we get to buy both. Neither fits that bill, but it sounds like both are moving in that direction in the future.
The week after VMworld, a rumored Apple event may happen. Unfortunately, the event is scheduled for 9/9/09, after I leave San Fran – darn it. AppleInsider is rumoring the event will be iPod related – including adding point-and-shoot camera capabilites to the iPod lines. iTunes 9 is also expected to be announced with some social networking tie-in’s. Years past, as AppleInsider reports, the event has been held at the Yerba Buena Center – and that is just a couple blocks from the hotel in the city – oh well…
So, its an exciting week for me coming up. I’m looking forward to the trip and to VMworld.
A vSphere 4.0 VMware High Availability cluster may not failover virtual machines when ESX is configured with certain IP addresses – KB Article: 1013013
A new KB from VMware was released on the 20th.
Here are the details.
“
VMware vCenter Server
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.
Symptoms
You experience these symptoms:
- In vCenter 4.0, VMware HA might not failover virtual machines when a host failure occurs.
- When the ESX host’s IP address in a VMware HA enabled cluster is configured with certain IP addresses, the node failure detection algorithm fails.
- You are susceptible to this issue when all of your Service Console Port(s) or Management Network IP address(s) on your ESX host fall within the following range:
3.x.x.x – 9.x.x.x
26.x.x.x – 99.x.x.xNote: You are not affected if one of Service Console Port(s) or Management Network IP address(s) on your ESX host falls outside of this range.
Resolution
Switch the Service Console Port(s) or Management Network IP address(s) on your ESX host in the VMware HA cluster to IP ranges that do not fall within the affected range. For example, 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x.
If you have multiple Service Console or Management networks, at least one of your networks must be outside of the affected range. VMware HA still uses the affected range for cluster communication and heartbeating but not for host failure verification.
If changing the IP address(s) of your Service Console Port(s) or Management Network(s) is not possible, you can also install vCenter Server 4.0 Patch 1.”
New Domain Name.
Point your feeds to the new address! http://feeds.feedburner.com/RogerLundsItVmware/VirutalizationBlog
Roger Lund
We paid for Vmware support and I had an event. Nothing big but what the heck we paid for support. I created a ticket through the support portal and got a call back the same day. I talked with the tech and decided to postpone the call until the following week since it was Friday and it was nothing big. The next week the tech called me when he had promised. He remote desk-toped in and we setup a putty session. I watched him use the following commands. Some are basic but some are new it me.
cd etc
less hosts
cd var
less hostd.log
date
ps -ef | grep hostd
ps -ef | grep vpxa
config.xml -u
service vmware status
cat vmkernel
vdf -h
vmware -v
esxupdate
top
view vmkernel
ps -lf -C cimserver
I hope these commands are helpful.
Ben T.
Cody at Professional VMware has a nice write up on VMDirectPath and Paravirutal SCSI, titled : VMDirectPath? Paravirtual SCSI? – vSphere VM Options and You!
“This post comes because I am just as confused as the rest of you when it comes to the options available in some of these new vSphere interfaces. I figure it best to take a look at some of the options, and figure when it is best to move away from defaults and start tuning things just right.
This one is another post that originated from the great Mr. @rogerlund.
Specifically Mr. Lund asked me to answer the following three questions: “Which applications would be good for Paravirtual SCSI? Which for VMDirectPath? And; How do we choose?”
“
Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI)
Part (most) of the when & why for PVSCSI is provided in the quote from above. You use PVSCSI when you need a high performance virtual storage adapter. What does this mean? It means you will not use this for your AD server, or print server. You also generally will not use this on local storage, or DAS (Direct Attached Storage).
When would you use it? Well, I’m glad you asked. Remember that database that you were not virtualizing, because of it’s high IO requirement? That graphics rendering app for marketing that let the magic blue smoke out of your last SAN array? These are good candidates for PVSCSI.
VMDirectPath
This here, is where we answer the when and why, for VMDirectPath. VMDirectPath is quite a bit different than PVSCSI, but no less cool. It allows VMs to directly access PCI(e) devices. Up to two per VM. Now why would you want to do that? Wasn’t hardware abstraction one of the beauties of virtualizing your environment? Remember that security appliance? The one that corporate security insists be physical as it has this oddball entropy card? That goes here.
”
I only quoted a couple key parts, please refer to the full post to read the full article http://professionalvmware.com/2009/08/17/vmdirectpath-paravirtual-scsi-vsphere-vm-options-and-you/
Thanks to Cody for writing this up!
I did want to cover the steps on setting both of these up. The following steps are taken from the VMware vSphere Online Library.
“
Add a Paravirtualized SCSI Adapter
- Right-click on the virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
- Click Add.
- Select SCSI Device and click Next.
- Select a SCSI device.
- Select an unused Virtual Device Node.
- Click Next.
- Review your selections and click Finish.
- A new SCSI device and a new SCSI controller are created.
- Select the new SCSI controller and click Change Type.
- Select VMware Paravirtual and click OK.
“
PCI devices connected to a host can be marked as available for passthrough from the Hardware Advanced Settings in the Configuration tab for the host.
To use VMDirectPath, the host must have Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) or AMD I/O Virtualization Technology (IOMMU) enabled in the BIOS. In order to add PCI devices to a virtual machine, the devices must be connected to the host and marked as available for passthrough. In addition, PCI devices can be added only to virtual machines with hardware version 7.
- Select the virtual machine from the inventory panel and click Virtual Machine > Edit Settings.
- On the Hardware tab, click Add.
- In the Add Hardware wizard, select PCI Device and click Next.
- Select the passthrough device to connect to the virtual machine from the drop-down list and click Next.
- Click Finish.
“
With Cody’s Write up, and the above directions, we should be set, have fun playing!
Roger L.
Mozy has released an incremental update to address the Time Machine conflict and issues that version 1.4 introduced. The update, labeled 1.4.3, was released early today, according to ComputerWorld. I have installed the update and it did immediately fix the problems with my Time Machine backups. My initial backup is running along at a very good speed, starting over from scratch. I unfortunately trashed my sparse disk image on my backup drive, so I don’t have all of that history, but its no big deal. This should backup overnight and be complete by morning.
- 1
- 2