Various

VMware Partner Exchange 2012 – Las Vegas

Duncan Epping · Dec 9, 2011 ·

A couple of weeks back I received the news that one of the sessions I submitted was accepted for VMware Partner Exchange 2012. PEX is held in Las Vegas from the 13th til the 16th of February. There’s an excellent program again. Make sure to check the full list here. If you haven’t signed up yet, do it quick as the early bird discount has been extended with a couple of weeks, it will save you $ 400,-.

This is the session that I submitted:

Session 1359: Architecting a Cloud Infrastructure
Abstract: This session will discuss the various design considerations when architecting the foundation for every solid cloud environment: vSphere 5.0. We will start with sizing and scaling and end with some operational guidance. Different examples will be used to show the impact design considerations can have on the availability of your services.

Presenters: Duncan Epping and David Hill

Just added:

Session 1262 (Wednesday 2/12 @ 12:30pm): DR of the Cloud and to the Cloud

This session will look at DR and the cloud. Two different DR scenarios will be presented in depth – DR of the cloud and DR to the cloud. DR to the cloud is how end consumers fail over resources to a cloud provider. DR of the cloud is how you fail over cloud resources from one site to another. This session will go in depth on the consumer and provider side of the architecture. We’ll look at how to replicate the data, what applications are primary targets, how to size environments, how to maintain multi-tenancy, and what to avoid when architecting these solutions. This session is a must for anyone considering tier 1 applications for the cloud.

Presenters: Chris Colotti and Duncan Epping

I glanced over the list of sessions at PEX and I definitely highly recommend adding the following to your schedule. I tried to keep the list limited by forcing my self to only list 15, too many great sessions at PEX.

Emad Benjamin – (1187) Virtualizing Latency Sensitive Workloads and vFabric GemFire
Thomas Kraus – (1206) vCloud Director 1.5 solution integration
Cormac Hogan – (1231) vSphere Storage Appliance Deep Dive
Rob Randell – (1248) Using vShield and vCenter Configuration Manager to Achieve Better Than Physical Security for Business Critical Applications
Mike DiPetrillo – (1260) Multi-Site Cloud Deployment How-To
Clive Wenman – (1265) SRM 5.0 & vSphere Replication – Understanding the Use cases and Implementation Options
Chris Colotti – (1269) Upgrading the vCloud Solution Stack in an End to End Environment
Kamau Wanguhu – (1276) vCloud Director Networking and where VXLAN fits in
Carter Shanklin – (1316) Using Elastic Memory for Java to pool application server memory, improve consolidation ratios, and increase app server reliability.
Kyle Gleed – (1328) Upgrading to vSphere 5.0
Grant Suzuki – (1349) VMware vShield App and Data Security Deep Dive
Ken Werneburg – (1363) SRM 5 Demo – New Features in Action and Q&A
Tom Stephens – (1374) The Last Mile in HA: Application Availability
Justin King – (1388) Up and Running with vSphere vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA)
Alex Fontana – (1466) Design, Deploy and Optimize Exchange 2010 on vSphere

See you in Las Vegas!

Using Storage IO Control and Network IO Control together?

Duncan Epping · Dec 7, 2011 ·

I had a question today from someone who asked if there was any point in enabling SIOC (Storage IO Control) when you have NIOC (Network IO Control) enabled and configured. Lets start with the answer: Yes there is! NIOC controls traffic on a single NIC port level. In other words, when you have 10GbE NIC ports and vMotion, VMs and NFS (for instance) use the same NIC port it will prevent one of the streams from claiming all bandwidth while others need it. It basically is the police officer who controls a group of people getting too loud in a single room.

As not many people realize this lets repeat it… NIOC controls traffic on a NIC port level. Not on a NIC pair, not on a host level and not on a cluster wide level. On a NIC port level!

SIOC does IO control on a Datastore-VM layer. Meaning that when a certain threshold is reached it will determine on a datastore wide level which hosts and essentially which VMs get a specific chunk of the resources. SIOC prevents a single VM from claiming all IO resources for a datastore in a cluster. SIOC is cluster wide on a datastore level! It basically is the police officer who asks your neighbor to tone it down when as he is bothering the rest of the street.

Yes, enabling SIOC and NIOC together makes a lot of sense!

Some more nuggets about handling VIB files

Duncan Epping · Nov 30, 2011 ·

After I posted my article yesterday Jason Boche posted a comment about the reboot that was required according to the screenshot. I looked in to it and quickly realized that if I would alter my “descriptor.xml” I would not get this message. In other words, it depends on the package that is installed if a reboot is required or not, in my case I made the following simple changes to install the package without the need to reboot:

<live-install-allowed>true</live-install-allowed>
<live-remove-allowed>true</live-remove-allowed>

In other words, I am allowed to install it without a reboot and remove it without a reboot. Simple huh? Of course I tested it and this is the result:

~ # esxcli software vib install -v /test.vib
Installation Result
   Message: Operation finished successfully.
   Reboot Required: false
   VIBs Installed: Duncan_bootbank_firewallrule_1.0
   VIBs Removed:
   VIBs Skipped:
~ #

After clicking refresh in the vCenter client the firewall rule I created pops up as expected.

Now if you would like to know before installing what the package contains and what the requirements are you can simply figure that out by doing the following:

~ # esxcli software sources vib get -v file:/test.vib
Duncan_bootbank_firewallrule_1.0
   Name: firewallrule
   Version: 1.0
   Type: bootbank
   Vendor: Duncan
   Acceptance Level: CommunitySupported
   Summary: Firewall rule
   Description: Firewall rule
   Release Date: 2011-06-01
   Depends:
   Conflicts:
   Replaces:
   Provides:
   Maintenance Mode Required: False
   Hardware Platforms Required:
   Live Install Allowed: True
   Live Remove Allowed: True
   Stateless Ready: False
   Overlay: False
   Tags: driver, module
   Payloads: test
~ #

As you can see in this case, “live install allowed” is set to true. The vendor is “Duncan” and the Acceptance Level is “CommunitySupported”, these are important details in my opinion! Another one to keep an eye on is if the package is “Stateless Ready” or not. In my case I defined it as “false”.

Of course you can also remove a VIB file after installing it. This is pretty straight forward, first of all list all the installed VIBs:

~ # esxcli software vib list
Name                  Version                             Vendor  Acceptance Level  Install Date
--------------------  ----------------------------------  ------  ----------------  ------------
ata-pata-amd          0.3.10-3vmw.500.0.0.456551          VMware  VMwareCertified   2011-06-06
ata-pata-atiixp       0.4.6-3vmw.500.0.0.456551           VMware  VMwareCertified   2011-06-06
ata-pata-cmd64x       0.2.5-3vmw.500.0.0.456551           VMware  VMwareCertified   2011-06-06

After listing all installed VIBs you can easily remove them by using the following command:

~ # esxcli software vib remove -n ata-pata-amd

This would remove the VIB named “ata-pata-amd”. You could even do a “dry-run” to see what the result would be:

~ # esxcli software vib remove -n ata-pata-amd --dry-run
Removal Result
   Message: Dryrun only, host not changed. The following installers 
   will be applied: [BootBankInstaller]
   Reboot Required: true
   VIBs Installed:
   VIBs Removed: VMware_bootbank_ata-pata-amd_0.3.10-3vmw.500.0.0.456551
   VIBs Skipped:
~ #

I hope this provides some more details around how to handle VIB files. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you have any questions at all.

Fling: ESX System Analyzer

Duncan Epping · Nov 30, 2011 ·

When I joined Tech Marketing in February of this year my first task literally was the ESX System Analyzer. I was part of the team who developed the specs and test the app, but the main driving force behind the tool was my colleague Kyle Gleed (@VMwareESXi).

The tool / fling was designed specifically to help people migrate from ESX to ESXi and to smoothen the transition especially in those environments where the Service Console was customized over the years. If you haven’t migrated yet, and want to make the jump to a lean and mean hypervisor I suggest to take a look at this fling and analyze your environment to help with planning the transition!

Source: VMware Labs

The ESX System Analyzer is a tool designed to help administrators plan a migration from ESX to ESXi. It analyzes the ESX hosts in your environment and, for each host, collects information on factors that pertain to the migration process:

Hardware compatibility with ESXi

VMs registered on the ESX host, as well as VMs located on the host’s local disk

Modifications to the Service Console

RPMs which have been added or removed

Files which have been added

Users and cronjobs which have been added

This tool also provides summary information for the whole existing environment

Version of VMware Tools and Virtual Hardware for all VMs

Version of Filesystem for all datastores

By having this information, administrators can determine what tasks need to be done prior to the migration. Examples include:

Relocate VMs from local datastores to shared datastores

Make note of what agent software has been added to the host and obtain the equivalent agentless version

Replace cronjobs with equivalent remote scripts written with PowerCLI or vCLI

Crazy Black Friday / Cyber Monday deal!

Duncan Epping · Nov 25, 2011 ·

I know there are a lot of crazy deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but this is most definitely the deal of the year for all virtualization fanatics! I just changed the price of the vSphere 5 Clustering Technical Deepdive to $ 4.99 and 3.99 for my European friends. Yes that is correct…. Less than 5 dollars for over 350 pages of deepdive material. Keep in mind that this is a limited offer, Tuesday the 29th the price will be back to “normal” again.

Pick it up, tell your friends / colleagues / family about it… Here are some snippets from Amazon reviews, but with 15 extremely positive reviews, all of them 5 out of 5, you know you can’t go wrong:

“If you’re serious about VMware virtualization this book is a must have. Regardless of you responsibilities with a virtual infrastructure administrative, or from a architecture design stand point this book is for you. The level of knowledge and depth which Frank and Duncan cover in this book about the new clustering changes in vSphere 5 is priceless. The design tips and illustrations through the book are truly invaluable. There is no other book that gets into the core of all the different vSphere 5 cluster technologies like this one, ”

“Whether you are longing to know about the transition from AAM to FDM, best practices for DRS and DPM, or are just curious to know what those acronyms are this is a great book! The technical detail, practical advice, and comparative analysis throughout make this book one of the most thorough yet concise technical books available.”

“The book is clearly written, a special emphasis has been made on making it understandable even for professionals like me who use vSphere daily yet do not manage huge production environments. The book goes to great lengths to explain all possible scenarios and I found answers to all my questions. Not only sections cover HOW the technology works, but the authors go as far as explaining the way the algorithms are working, which will satisfy the curiosity of everyone.”

“The complete explanations provide the reader all of the information needed to make informed decisions about their environment with excellent diagrams to provide strong visual reinforcements.”

** Please note that Amazon charges for remote downloads, so the price listed here is “local” download price without the additional Amazon transfer costs **