by Duncan Epping
Duncan Epping · ·
Chad just wrote an amazing article about what vStorage actually is. Besure to read this one!
vStorage has been something that VMware and EMC have been working together on for a long time, in fact, before it was called vStorage (which was recent) – it used to be called VMAS a name only engineers would like. In fact, we’ve been working on this from almost right after the original acquisition before the program even existed formally.
Duncan Epping · ·
So there’s a new term floating around “vCenter”. So what is vCenter?
vCenter provides comprehensive management of applications and infrastructure in this flexible, fluid environment and integrates with leading systems management vendors for seamless, end to end datacenter management.
So as spectacular as this may sound, it just VirtualCenter renamed. Although not every section of the VMware website as been changed accordingly, this is what vCenter is.
So I just noticed a couple of more “hidden” announcements. These announcements all deal about management and automation. And if you do the math you can probably link some of them back to certain acquisitions that VMware did recently.
So here’s the list of new vCenter add-ons:
Combine these 5 with the ones that were already discovered but also in some way deal with management and automation: Host Profiles, Distributed vSwitches, Linked VC’s and vApp and you’ve probably got the ultimate Virtual Automated DataCenter… Only two question left. How is VMware going to top this? And how is the competition going to respond?
Duncan Epping · ·
I clearly don’t know much about Citrix version of HA, but I do know a thing or two about VMware’s version of HA.
The following are outtakes of the article over at DABCC:
VMware’s HA is heavily dependent on DNS or alternatively hosts entries being in place. The VMware implementation is based on the Legato Automated Availability Management (AAM), in fact some of us will recall that it used to place those logs into /opt/LGTOaam512/logs/ (since 3.5 this has been moved /opt/vmware/aam).
VMware’s HA uses the network to establish a heartbeat between all the ESX Hosts participating, So practically, what does this mean to the poor bloke who has to support the servers? If you network has a bit of a flap (personally I always blame the Network guysJ), your servers will implement an “isolation response”, the default server response will shut down your Virtual Machine to release the shared storage locks, this will allow the machine to be restarted on another host, this of course may not be desirable if the server is busy doing something, i.e. you may cause corruption or other issues with the Application/Database. In other words it won’t perform a clean shutdown. This is configurable such that you can keep the machines powered on, but this isn’t recommended in the case of NAS or iSCSI (as they are also network dependant) and you may end up with a split-brain situation.
There is now also experimental support for component level HA, i.e. if a Virtual Machine fails, then VMware will try to restart it.
Duncan Epping · ·
There are two new pdf’s online…
Management and Automation Products: Deployment Approaches and Considerations:
VMware Management and Automation products provide datacenter automation solutions in IT service delivery and business continuity. These products can be deployed across a shared VMware Infrastructure platform. This paper presents technical guidance and considerations when deploying these products together on a shared VI platform. [Link]
Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines:
This paper describes how timekeeping hardware works in physical machines, how typical guest operating systems use this hardware to keep time, and how VMware products virtualize the hardware. [Link]
Duncan Epping · ·
For those that are still using 3.0.2 and are not looking to upgrade to 3.5 U2 yet, VMware just released 3.0.3! Don’t expect new features to popup. Version 3.0.3 is mainly about compatability and patches:
Processors
Newly supported processors are:
- Quad-Core AMD Opteron 8300 series and 2300 series processor families (collectively code-named Barcelona)
- Dual-core Intel Xeon 5200 series processors (code-named Wolfdale)
Drivers
Upgraded drivers are:
- igb driver version 1.0.0
- Broadcom 5722 tg3 driver version upgraded from 3.43.to 3.58b
- Emulex lpfc driver version upgraded to 7.3.2_vmw10
Guest Operating Systems
Newly supported guest operating systems are:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Data Center Edition
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1
Enhanced Patch and Upgrade Management
Significant improvements to the following patch management utilities:
- esxupdate Utility – Support for super-bundle and rollup features in esxupdate.
- Support for VMware Update Manager.
Service Console
Update for service console from RHEL3 U8 to RHEL3 U9.
Management Agents
Support for new versions of Management Agents:
- HP Insight Manager 8.1
- Dell OpenManage Server Administrator 5.4
- IBM Director 5.20 Update 1
Backup Software
Support for additional backup software from third-party vendors:
- EMC Networker Version 7.4 SP1
- IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Version 5.5
Quality Improvements
A significant number of issues have been fixed. Some of these issues have been described in Resolved Issues in this Release.
Get it while it’s stil hot and read the complete release notes here!