VI Administration – Even From A Galaxy Far, Far Away

May 16th, 2009 by jason No comments »

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Introducing Hyper9 Virtualization Mobile ManagerTM Beta

Mobile Monitoring and Support
3 Hyper9 knows VI administrators. We understand their challenges, which is why we’ve removed so much complexity, risk and cost from virtualization management. But we also know about something else VI admin’s need – freedom. Freedom from the infrastructure. Freedom to leave at the end of the day without concern. Freedom to take lunch, or even a vacation, without looking back. It’s why we created Virtualization Mobile Manager (VMM).

What’s New in VMM?

VMM offers administrators remote monitoring and support – browser-based management that works on a wide variety of mobile devices. VMM now supports VMware, Xen and Hyper-V and useless features and complexity don’t bog down VMM. Affordable, easy to use, and workable even on simple cell phones.

Developed by virtualization infrastructure expert Andrew Kutz, VMM enables remote network control, extended scalability and multi-platform support, all within a mobile display designed for optimal efficiency. It’s all part of our commitment to providing VI administrators with the tools they need to work smarter and take action right away.

Take Me To My People Program
The VMM beta is available to the entire VI admin universe today – but as usual, true believers get something extra. The first 15 to sign up through boche.net will receive the following perks:

  • 50% off pricing on our already low pricing
  • Automatic entry into Win a Mobile Device contest, beginning in June
  • In exchange for a little feedback – a limited edition Hyper9 T-shirt

VMM Highlights?
There’s no question that VMM is the ticket to higher intelligence for VI administrators.
Here are some of the details that just may make a believer out of you:

Features4

  • Monitor on the Go
  • Supports all major hypervisors
  • Runs on Windows, Linux and OS X
  • Accessible via a Web Browser

Mobile

  • Monitor Host and VM Performance Statistics (CPU, Memory)
  • Control VM’s and Take Action On the Go (start, stop, pause, reset, disable network)
  • Optimized for Mobile Devices (Apple iPhone, Blackberry, Google Android and Windows Mobile devices)

Supported Hypervisors

  • VMware Server 2
  • VMware Infrastructure 3.5 Hosts (VMware ESX 3.5, ESXi 3.5, VirtualCenter 2.5)
  • Microsoft Hyper-V
  • Citrix XenServer 5

Supported Platforms

  • VMM is hosted as an Apache Tomcat web application
  • Windows, Linux and OS X

Supported Modes

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For more information, to join the beta and download the product, please see visit this link. Be sure to tell them boche.net – VMware Virtualization Evangelist sent you. Remember, only the first 15 to register are eligible for the Take Me To My People Program benefits.

If you’d prefer, you can send me your information via email (your name and email address) and I will connect you with a Hyper9 representative so that you may take advantage of this limited time offer.

Lab Manager Network Port Requirements

May 13th, 2009 by jason No comments »

I need to become a VMware Lab Manager expert and so it begins.  From what I’ve seen so far, Lab Manager 3.x has made great progress since I last kicked the tires 15 months ago on Lab Manager 2.x.  The biggest news by far is that ESX hosts can be managed both by Lab Manager Server and vCenter Server with all the fixins (DRS, HA, VMotion).  Although I’ve already found that VMs connected to an internal only vSwitch remain pinned to the host due to VMotion rules.

Nothing too Earth shattering here; this information comes straight from page 20 of the Lab Manager Installation and Upgrade Guide.

Systems TCP Port UDP Port
Client browser to access Lab Manager Server system 443
Client browser to access ESX hosts 902, 903
Lab Manager Server system and ESX hosts to access SMB share

(import and export operations only)

139, 445 137, 138
ESX hosts to access NFS media datastores or NFS virtual machine datastores 2049
Lab Manager Server system to access Lab Manager agent on ESX hosts 5212
Lab Manager Server system to access ESX host agent on ESX hosts 443
Lab Manager Server system to access the VirtualCenter Server system 443
Lab Manager Server system to communicate with virtual router on some ESX hosts

(for fenced configurations)

514
Lab Manager Server system to access LDAP Server 389 LDAP

636 LDAPS

Before the installation of Lab Manager, be sure that ports above won’t conflict with an existing configuration by running the netstat -b command from the Windows command line.

Celebrity Twitter Overkill

May 13th, 2009 by jason No comments »

I linked to a hilarious Twitter video a while back. Here’s another installment which focuses on celebrity Twitterers. Note quite as good as the first IMO one but still a must see:

vSphere Memory Hot Add/CPU Hot Plug

May 10th, 2009 by jason 43 comments »

I’ve been experimenting with vSphere’s memory hot add and CPU hot plug features to determine its usefulness with Windows Server operating systems. I came up with mixed results depending on the version and architecture of the OS.

A few notes about the results:

  1. Memory hot remove is not supported at all by vSphere. It’s not an option no matter what the guest OS.
  2. Although virtual hardware can be hot added depending on the OS, there are caveats in certain cases
    1. A guest reboot may be required (this is outlined in the table below).
    2. Memory that is hot added to guests that support the hot add without a reboot will result in 100% sustained CPU utilization in the guest OS for a variable period of time that is dependent on the amount of of memory that is added. In my testing (and keep in mind your mileage may vary on different hardware):
      1. 1GB of RAM hot added resulted in 100% CPU for 1-3 seconds.
      2. 3GB of RAM hot added resulted in 100% CPU for about 10 seconds.
  3. CPU hot unplug is supported by vSphere but was not supported by any of the Windows operating systems that I tested.
  4. Going from 1vCPU to 2vCPUs in Windows 2008 guest operating systems did not result in a HAL change. From what I can tell, Windows 2008 uses the same HAL for uniprocessor and SMP. When a vCPU is hot added, it does show up right away in the Device Manager, however, it’s not seen in Task Manager or Computer Properties therefore my assumption is that processes are not being scheduled on the added vCPU until after the reboot at which time the additional vCPU shows up in all places that it should (ie. Task Manager, Computer Properties, etc.)
  5. I certainly like the innovation and flexibility here but I’m not sure hot add technology is going to mesh well with planned change management systems. The most important thing to recognize though is that VMware offers this technology to us as our choice to use or not use. It’s not a feature VMware held back drawing their own conclusion that nobody on the planet could ever use it. Microsoft does this today with Hyper-V memory over commit. Or rather they don’t offer memory over commit in Hyper-V because they made the decision on behalf of all their customers that nobody could or should use memory over commit. Instead you should pad your hosts with more physical memory at additional cost to you.

Here is the table of results I came up with:

Memory hot
add
Memory hot
remove
CPU hot
plug
CPU hot
unplug
Windows Server 2003 STD x86 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁
Windows Server 2003 STD x64 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁
Windows Server 2003 ENT x86 😎 🙁 🙁 🙁
Windows Server 2003 ENT x64 😎 🙁 🙁 🙁
Windows Server 2008 STD x86 😎 * 🙁 🙁 🙁
Windows Server 2008 STD x64 😎 * 🙁 😎 * 🙁
Windows Server 2008 ENT x86 😎 🙁 🙁 🙁
Windows Server 2008 ENT x64 😎 🙁 😎 * 🙁
Windows Server 2008 DC x86 😎 🙁 🙁 🙁
Windows Server 2008 DC x64 😎 🙁 😎 🙁
Windows Server 2008 R2 DC x64
(experimental support only)
😎 🙁 😎 🙁
* Reboot of guest OS required to recognize added hardware

Force vCenter Server update to reflect .vmx changes

May 2nd, 2009 by jason No comments »

Virtual infrastructure administrators may edit a VM’s .vmx configuration file by hand with vi or nano (my favorite) for a variety of reasons. Efficiency through bulk changes via scripting, troubleshooting a problem, adding unsupported/undocumented .vmx parameters, or a higher comfort level with command line interfaces to name just a few.

Modifying .vmx files by hand is all well and good. Administrators have been doing since since for as far back as I can remember with VMware products. There is an annoying caveat with VMware vCenter Server however. Changes made by hand in the .vmx file may take a while to show up in the Virtual Infrastructure Client. For example, if I’m looking at a VM’s configuration summary in the VIC, and then modify the .vmx file to change the memory configuration from 256MB to 512MB, save and exit, nothing seems to happen in the VIC. I’m looking at the VIC and configured memory of 256MB is staring back at me. It may end up staying this way for quite some time. Removing the VM from inventory and re-adding it to inventory will resolve the issue but that’s drastic, annoying, and it presents the opportunity for more problems. For instance, what if during the import of the VM it lands in the wrong resource pool or VM folder? Suddenly you’re exposed to potential resource contention issues impacting SLAs and incorrect permissions or patch management baselines on the VM.

There’s an easier way that involves a lot less risk using two vimsh commands at the service console. Here are the steps:

  1. Log on to the service console on the host that the VM is registered on.
  2. In the service console, make the configuration change in the .vmx file and save it.
  3. In the service console, run the command vimsh -ne “vmsvc/getallvms” |grep <vmname> to obtain the VmID of the VM. The VmID will be the first number displayed on the left. Excluding the |grep <vmname> portion of the command will display all VMs registered on the ESX host.
    Example:
    vimsh -ne “vmsvc/getallvms” |grep knoppix
    Returns:
    80 knoppix [msa1000_lun3] knoppix/knoppix.vmx otherLinuxGuest vmx-04 Veeam Backup: Time [4/30/2009 5:46:41 AM], Backup host [SKYWALKER], Backup file [V:\VeeamBackups\Galleon Cluster Backup.vbk]
  4. In the service console, run the command vimsh -ne “vmsvc/reload <VmID>” using the VmID obtained in the previous step.
    Example:
    vimsh -ne “vmsvc/reload 80”
  5. After a few seconds, the configuration change will be received by the vCenter Server and will be reflected in the VIC.

vimsh is a very powerful command line tool. To check out more of its goodness, take a look at xtravirt’s vimsh documentation.

VMware ESX 4.0 installation video

April 27th, 2009 by jason 8 comments »

Taking a queue from VCritical‘s VMware vCenter Server 4.0 installation video, following is a video showcasing the VMware ESX 4.0 GUI installation on HP Proliant DL385 server hardware with an AMD Opteron 280 dual core 64-bit processor, 4GB RAM, two internal 15kRPM SCSI drives, two onboard Gb NICs, and SAN attached storage via two fibre HBAs.

Points of interest in the video:

  • The ESX 4.0 boot media is DVD ROM (not CD ROM).
  • 9:03:23 F2 is pressed revealing the various kernel arguments tied to each of the embedded boot options.
  • 9:05:03 Custom driver installation (NICs, HBAs, array controllers, etc.)
  • 9:05:42 As in ESX 2.x, the ability to enter host based licensing at the console.
  • 9:05:49 pNIC adapter selection reveals MAC address and connection state (both of which can be very useful).
  • 9:05:57 A “Test these settings” button for the Service Console NIC
  • 9:06:47 Detailed information is shown about SAN attached storage such as storage array type and fabric information.
  • 9:06:58 Careful selection of the target installation disk spares the existing VMFS volumes on SAN attached storage from being formatted. Only the selected disk is initialized.
  • 9:07:12 Choosing an existing or creating a new datastore to hold VMs and VMKernel swap. The volume created here did not appear to be block aligned.
  • 9:07:44 VMware auto created partitioning. Not shown (hidden) is a 250MB /boot partition, 110MB vmkcore partition, and the VMFS volume the installer was instructed to create. VMware’s automatic partitioning schemes over the years don’t seem to follow best practices and lessons learned in the community and in some cases what their instructors teach in the classroom. I think it would help if VMware read the partitioning discussions on their forums or some of the books from the accomplished authors in the community. For instance, creating a mount point for /var/log instead of /var which can contain a subdirectory such as /var/xyz having large core dumps for 3rd party agents or products. I’m all for keeping things simple but not at the price of risking a virtual infrastructure component running 1, 10, or 100+ VMs. From what I’m seeing, manual partitioning is still needed in ESX 4.0 to be in alignment with best practices.
  • 9:09:12 I purposely choose the incorrect date here merely to demonstrate that host names may be used in lieu of IP addresses for NTP Server selection. Upon entering the FQDN of an NTP server, the calendar snaps back to the correct date.
  • 9:08:50 You probably just want to fast forward the video to the end. Nothing very exciting happens during the file copy process.
  • 9:17:17 The file copy completes and the host is rebooted.
  • 9:19:47 All SAN attached volumes are still in tact with data on them.


ESX 4.0 GUI Installation from Jason Boche on Vimeo.

Virtualvcp.com temporarily unavailable

April 26th, 2009 by jason No comments »

Quick note to the virtualization blog readers that our friend Rynardt Spies is experiencing technical difficulties while on vacation in South Africa. As a result, his popular virtualization blog www.virtualvcp.com may be unavailable until Saturday May 2nd.


“I’m writing to try and get the word out the my blog www.virtualvcp.com is down. I’m on holiday in South Africa and it seems like there’s been a failure of some sort with my firewall. I’m unable to fix the problem until i’m back in the uk on Saturday, 2 may.

Could you please just post this on your blog as there is now hundreds of hits a day that will get bounced and i have no way of communicating this to readers.

Thanks,

Rynardt Spies
VCP / vExpert
www.virtualvcp.com”

Rynardt, don’t feel bad. I had the same thing happen to my website (along with a few others that I was hosting) when I went away on my honeymoon. The gateway router had locked up and denied traffic to the sites until I returned.