Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

Server

Bluebear’s Kodiak!

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I just received my beta invite for Bluebear’s Kodiak and will be testing it today. I am downloading a brand new Ubuntu 8.0.4 virtual appliance and will keep you guys up to date on this multi platform VirtualCenter management client.

If anyone wants an invite to the beta program than just drop your email here, or send me your email on duncan[@]yellow-bricks.com and I will hook you up. It’s still limited so be quick!

I’m all out. So you guys should help each other… over 60 invites within 24 hours. Bluebear is hot!

Storage VMotion fails after Service Console IP change

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As some of you know I spend a lot of time on the VMTN forums, helping people out and learning from other experts. Today someone posted about Storage VMotion not working after a Service Console IP change. It reminded me of a problem I faced a while ago. The solution wasn’t obvious but fairly easy, because the problem was solved with a slightly different approach I wrote it down:

Disconnect the ESX host from VirtualCenter
Stop the VMware VirtualCenter Server service
Remove the /etc/opt/vmware/vpxa/vpxa.cfg file from the ESX host that’s affected
Run this script on the database:
———–
UPDATE [VCDB].[dbo].[VPX_HOST]
SET [IP_ADDRESS] = ‘w.x.y.z’
WHERE [DNS_NAME] = ‘name of esx host as it is listed in the table’
———–
“w.x.y.z” above is the new ip address
Start the VMware VirtualCenter Server service
Add the host to the cluster again

Thanks goes out to BigRolTide for pointing me out to this solution. (In my case updating the database wasn’t necessarry)

Update: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006768

Partitioning ESX during installations

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I see this a lot, and I also made the same mistake for a long time, because of the defaults of the ESX installer a lot of people tend to create a partition for /var/log. But keep in mind this means that everything else inside /var will belong to the root file system.

So what’s the problem? Well there’s a possibility that your / fills up with core dumps! Some of you might know this and some of you might not know this, but /var/core is the place were core dumps are stored for the Service Console. So when for some reason it starts generating dumps it can and probably will fill up your root filesystem very quick and thus cause the host to halt. Last time I witnessed this it was caused by a hardware vendor agent.

VMware Cloud strategy

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Lately I’ve been reading all these blog and news articles that deal about the key message of VMworld: Cloud Computing. A lot of the journalists and blog writers didn’t pay attention during the Keynotes because they keep coming back to the fact that a lot of companies want to keep control of their data. Companies don’t want to have all their data floating around in a “cloud”.

So what’s Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is Internet based development and use of computer technology. The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals. It is a style of computing where IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”, allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. (source wikipedia)

So this is where people get confused, in the first sentence it says “Internet”. So this must mean that my data isn’t secure and out of my hands… And VMware thinks everyone will be doing this in the future?
A bit further down the same wikipedia page it states:

The majority of cloud computing infrastructure currently consists of reliable services delivered through next-generation data centers that are built on compute and storage virtualization technologies. The services are accessible anywhere in the world, with The Cloud appearing as a single point of access for all the computing needs of consumers. Commercial offerings need to meet the quality of service requirements of customers and typically offer service level agreements. Open standards and open source software are also critical to the growth of cloud computing.

So the services(and data) are accessible anywhere in the world, with a single point of access. It doesn’t state that your services are out in the open. There is a thing called “internal” cloud and you can find a great explanation on the internal cloud on VINF.NET. Keep in mind that they wrote this article before VMware announced the vCloud initiative.

Although the word cloud was used a lot of times during the keynote I don’t think that’s what the keynote was actually about. The keynote was about new VMware technology.

These new technologies seem to revolve around one thing, delivering your services with a certain SLA. And to be able to do this, one has to have a heavily optimized and automated environment, preferably virtualized. That is what the keynote was actually about in my opinion, the integration of all these new and existing products into the Virtual DataCenter OS to enable SLA-driven effective usage of resources for an optimal user experience.

Marathon HA/FT vs VMware HA/FT

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A couple of days ago I linked to Mike D. response to Marathon’s blogs. Mike has updated his original blog article and added a second article which responds to another blog by Marathon. Those who are interested in the difference between Marathon’s and VMware’s products should definitely read it. Especially if you’ve only read the Marathon posts so far. Mike D. sets the record straight!

Marathon FT and VMware FT

a short outtake: “This wasn’t talked about but Marathon’s virtualization FT only works with Windows 2003 Standard or Enterprise SP1 today. VMware FT works with any of the over 70 certified guest operating systems that run on Virtual Infrastructure. The Marathon solution also sits deeply embedded within the OS.”

Marathon everRun vs VMware HA – Another Mess

a short outtake: “As you can now see, Marathon obviously has never touched a VMware host to setup VMware HA. They simply type what they want customers to hear on their webpages time and time again and rely on that FUD to get them sales.”