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Virtualization

Lab Day at VMworld 2009

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Day 0 for VMworld was a bit of a bust for me.  I had two labs scheduled for the day – one which dealt with the upgrade from VI3 to vSphere 4 and the second with troubleshooting VMware View deployments.  Unfortunately, the first lab was plauged by technical issues and the lab was never able to get off the ground.   But the morning wasn’t a complete bust.  I actually ended up in line with a consultant I’d previously worked with from one of our partners, Logicalis, for the second lab.  So, he and I were able to talk about different things in the virtualization space.

The second lab was pretty good – still plauged with a few technical difficulties.  This lab largely worked, albeit slowly, because all of the lab environment was running from a single LUN (not a great idea). The lecture portion of this lab was quite good, so here a few notes:

  • VMware View contains the ability to prevent certain classes or hardware ID’s of USB devices from being able to attach to virtual desktops
  • We were exposed to a tool called USBlyzer which allows you to get the hardware, vendor ID and other needed information for masking away these devices from the View desktops
  • The USB limiting functionality is coordinated by registry entries and by the View tools loaded in the virtual desktop.
  • There are command line tools which allow for mapping default VM mappings for users and the ability to point user data disks back to the correct VMDK if you have to purge or redeploy a virtual desktop
  • We discussed the problems with User Data Disks and the mistaken notion that these were somehow roaming profiles for users
  • We talked about basic troubleshooting which often relies on DNS resolution – when in doubt, check DNS, if all else is working, check DNS again.
  • We talked about some of the things during a View deployment that could come into play – such as vCenter pointing to one Domain Controller and the View Desktops pointing to another (thanks to configuration in AD Sites and Services).  Because replication takes 15 minutes to occur, by default, in this configuration, View Desktops will try and join the domain, but computer accounts won’t exist.
  • Dynamic DNS is almost an necessity and even in environments where BIND or other DNS is used, most people setup a Windows DNS instance for Dynamic registration if only for the  virtual desktops – then including a forwarder to the primary BIND DNS or other.
  • And in case I didn’t say it already (I know I did, but here goes) – Problems with View deployments are almost always DNS.
  • We were exposed to two command lines:
  • vdmadmin – used to map users to default virtual desktops – vdmadmin -D -d desktop-pool -m machine -u domain\userid – can also be used to list user information, show entitlement or policies
  • sviconfig – used to backup or restore databases for View Composer – also used to create a View Composer database
  • See http://www.vmware.com/pdf/viewmanager_cl_tool.pdf for more information.

The afternoon was a partner session, which although I could have attended (nice little “Partner” tag on my credentials), but I chose not to.  Last year, the partner session was mostly how to sell and sales related marketing, but was interesting only because of the early access to the vSphere release information.   From other coverage online, the main announcements centered around cloud initiatives, which we heard about the following morning during the first general keynote.

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CloudVirtualization

VMworld 2009 First Day keynote notes

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Notes and things of interest from first day keynote:

  • 12,448 attendees at this year’s VMworld – down from last year in Las Vegas
  • Tod Nielson, VMware COO, challenged partners last year to try and recruit any of the 40 Fortune 1000 companies not using VMware to purchase VMware – 10 companies were recurited and those partners were rewarded with free passes to this year’s VMworld – not a bad challenge.  The same offer is extended to partners who can recruit any of the remaining 30 Fortune 1000 companies not using VMware.
  • Paul Maritz, President and CEO, takes the stage – talking about cloud initiatives
  • Martiz talks about how VMware has been driving capital expenditure savings and now also operational expenditure savings.
  • Talks about the growing family of vCenter products, including Chargeback, Capacity IQ, Orchestrator, SRM, ConfigControl, etc.
  • Commitment to small business – showed off the IT in a Box solution targeted at small business.
  • Also targeted it small to medium business – VMware Go announced – service offering for users of the free ESXi product to quickly configure and deploy ESXi for their uses – a way to engage the community which is tapping into free ESX offering.
  • vCloud Express – a service offering from cloud providers (like Terramark, who demo’d) to quickly and easily provision VM’s in the cloud all based on VMware’s vSphere platform.  At rates starting at about 3 cents per hour – or about $40 per month, its a good cost judging from my web hosting days…  and its all protected like any other vSphere cluster.  I’d certainly pay those prices!  I have a friend who runs a hosting company in mind that I may mention this offering to…
  • We also saw a demo of the PC over IP technology that has been developed.  TELUS demo’d and discussed their company all over a PCoIP connection – and it looked flawless.
  • Last, but not least, Martiz addressed the recent acquisition of SpringSource.  As soon as the demo began for this and source code appeared on screen, the flood gates open and people began leaving in mass.
  • SpringSource’s Rod Johnson took the stage for the demo and showed off SpringSource’s customized Eclipse framework which now offers a Deploy to internal cloud, Deploy to external cloud or Deploy to the local – aka the “very private cloud”.
  • The integration to deploy to cloud looked, to me, like Macromedia’s half-baked solutions for deploying code in Dreamweaver – it never really does the best job you could on your own – and probably not what a developer really wants – but good for a novice without a sys admin.
  • Glossed over was SpringSource’s Hyperic offering, though Martiz did remark that he thought this is what monitoring will look like in the future – and I agree.  If only they could do it agentless – somehow leveraging ESX instead of agents – fingers crossed.
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Virtualization

VMworld 2009 coverage notes

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

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…

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Virtualization

Planning to update VCP for vSphere 4

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

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.

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AppleVirtualization

WMworld and the week ahead

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

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.

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Virtualization

VMworld 2009 is coming up soon

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Its a little over a month prior to VMworld 2009 in San Francisco.  I recieved my approvals from work and I’ll be attending again this year and I’m anticipating a great conference with lots of great material to bring back.  I am patiently waiting for my notification that we can begin registering for sessions and labs.  I’m hoping to get some hands on labs with vSphere so that I can see what we are missing at work.

As I’m planning for the trip, I was making a list of things that I’m interested to see or get more information about.  So I’ve come up with a list:

  1. vCenter AppSpeed – the demo we saw last year at VMworld looked really promising, so I’m interested to see how it works and acts in a real environment.
  2. vCenter Data Recovery – Data Recovery may have a real fit within our environment.  Backups and recovery are a pain point for us today.  VCB is a particular issue as our buy-in for virtualization has increased dramatically.  Data Recovery looks promising for our environment, but will require us to move to vSphere, a move we have yet to plan.
  3. Security appliances – With the advent of the vSafe API’s, I’m interested to see what security vendors will have to show us during the event.  I’m sure many are saving product announcements and demonstrations for the wide audience during the week, but so far there have been relatively few vendors to bring products to market around this technology.
  4. Third party virtual switches – I’d love to see a HP Procurve virtual switch (giving us the ability to have mirror ports and such like our physical Procurves).
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Virtualization

VMware Fusion for $10 for Parallel’s owners

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Since I’ve blogged about my great problems with the Parallel’s Desktop 4.0 upgrade, I couldn’t not post this in case you’ve found yourself in the same boat.  VMware Fusion is being offered at 50% off for Cyber Monday.  (Just use the coupon code “CyberMondayDeal” on checkout).  In addition, if you are a Parallels Desktop or Microsoft VirtualPC owner then you qualify for an additional $30 rebate as a competative upgrade.

So, given that I had such a hard time, I’ve decided I’ll buy – heck, $10 ain’t much – and give Fusion a real try, running it in production.  So, I guess I should revise my virtualization history to say – I’m now VMware at home and work!

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Virtualization

Where virtualization sits in my datacenter

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

I had a fairly major revelation during VMworld.  Its not something that I had stopped to think about and I guess the week of sessions and discussions helped me assemble several random thoughts together.  

First, I’ve always relegated virutalization to a status where it is certainly a valuable technology and integral part of HTC’s datacenter strategy, but there is a trade-off where you have over-head and lose some performance.  I realize that the trade-off is very small, but understand that our datacenter has one farm of dual-core servers – our VMware farm.  

Second, I realized that our processors are just out pacing the computing needs of our current generation of software.  Much of this can be blamed on Microsoft’s inability to keep their server OS up to snuff, in my opinion.  But these two concepts never seemed to co-exist in my mind, until VMworld.  

One keynote talked briefly about how ESX is optimized for multi-core and how it makes efficient use of gobs of memory.  And, I’ve got two blade centers with blades that meet that description collecting dust as we try and figure out what to run on them.  So, why at this point am I hesitant to put Exchange, SQL Server and other ‘high-impact’ applications on a virtual platform?  I know that Windows Server 2003 can’t use all the memory or multi-cores.    It wasn’t architected to.  

We’re not making the move into Windows 2008 at this point, partially because of the Vista effect (our company is also swearing off Vista upgrades and sticking with our trusty XP).   And I guess that’s a third point.  Windows 2003 is just good enough for our busines. We’re comfortable with that OS, what it provides us and supporting it.   I know that Windows Server 2008 has some improvements to handle the additional hardware, but I’m still hearing it doesn’t do an efficient job of it.  But when you combine the complacency with Server 2003, XP and the ability to squeeze more performance out of the hardware by applying ESX, I think we have a winning combination.  

In our datacenter, we run multiple instance of Microsoft SQL Server in virtual and we have very good results from this.  I’m also facing a migration of Exchange onto a quad-core blade with 8Gb of RAM and thinking that’s way too much hardware for what our Exchange is doing.  And that thought is a major turn – because never in my past 8 years working with Exchange have I wanted LESS hardware for a server.  

And Exchange 2007’s architectual changes really has decentralized the whole Exchange “server” concept into multiple pieces which use many small servers for redundancy.  That defeats the big server, multi-core, gobs of memory hardware idea that all of Microsoft’s hardware partners are pushing, except with virtualization.  

So, at today’s crossroads, I’m dropping a lot of my resistence to keeping certain applications physical.  And that’s a big shift in my mentality.  There is too much horsepower to waste on an operating system which really can’t take advantage of it.  What do you think?

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Virtualization

VMworld sessions I wish I’d attended

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

First rule I learned at VMworld.  It’s so easy to miss a lot of good sessions.  Not all of my planned sessions were as stellar as some…  Most were fantastic – and those are the one’s I’ve blogged about. Here is the list (with links to other folk’s blogs for the good notes) that I wish I’d attended…

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Virtualization

VMware AppSpeed preview

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

One of the most compelling introductions I found during VMworld 2008 was the VMware AppSpeed product/plugin.  AppSpeed is the market delivery of the Beehive aquisition that VMware made last year.  During the Wednesday morning keynote by Dr. Stephen Herrod, CTO, all attendees were treated to a live demonstration of the AppSpeed product along with the laundry list of what it promises to be able to do.

Profile/Learn, Monitor, Mitigate
AppSpeed, in short, will passively learn your applications to map and build awareness of the dependant systems, databases (even the query level) and infrastructure services.  Once it builds a profile of your application, it can then begin to monitor and watch for problems and be able to guide you directly to the root of the problem.

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