The last couple of weeks more blogs and topics appeared around the warning VirtualCenter gives when there’s no service console redundancy. Several people posted about a workaround to clear this warning. The workaround is very easy: temporarily assign an additional nic to the service console vSwitch and reconfigure your HA. Notice that I used ” workaround” cause I definitely don’t see this as a solution for the problem. With the current technology there’s not much reason not to have a redundant service console in my opinion, especially when you are using HA. I know a nic hardly ever breaks but in this case probably more than 8 VM’s rely on this nic, the physical switch and the network cable it’s attached to. [Read more…] about Service Console redundancy
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Using vmpmotion.pl on Windows RCLI
When using vmpmotion.pl on Windows with the RCLI installed you will need to set some extra environment variables before the script will work. First besure that the Perl filetype is correctly setup. [Read more…] about Using vmpmotion.pl on Windows RCLI
VCB problems with independent disks
In my RSS reader I noticed a blog on VM/ETC about independent disks and VCB. The thing is, no snapshots are created when a disk is in independent/persistent mode. This can be a problem when you want to use VCB on all your disks. But this can also come in handy when you want to disable a specific disk from being picked up by VCB. For instance a Database server with a 1TB D: disk is probably not a candidate for for VCB in a normal situation. But when setting the D:\ disk in independent/persistent mode this disk will be skipped by VCB because it’s impossible to snapshot a disk that’s in this mode. This way you can dump the C:\ aka System partition and restore the VM in case of disaster recovery more easily.
New VMware certification?
Where’s the new VMware certification? I received an email about this “VMware Certified Design Expert” certification about two months ago? Beneath is what I received but I haven’t seen any new details since, although it clearly states “later this month”. Maybe you guys have?
A new advanced certification for design architects of enterprise deployments, VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDE), will be in beta toward the end of November. The VCDE measures the consultants ability to design, implement, document and test a VMware Infrastructure data center for the enterprise. Requirements for the VMware Certified Design Expert include:
- VMware Certified Professional (VCP) on VMware Infrastructure 3
- Pass a VMware Infrastructure 3 Enterprise level exam and a VMware Infrastructure 3 design exam
- Submit, present and defend a successful virtual infrastructure design plan
Additional information will be posted to the VMware certification page later this month.
VMware Stage Manager
VMware starts a new beta program the 21st of January, the product is called Stage Manager. Stage Manager seems to be some sort of Lab Manager spin off. But it goes way beyond what Lab Manager can do.
- You can easily boot shadow production servers
- Create test environments for infrastructure changes
- Build complex pre-production environments
- Systematically propagate complex system changes through development, testing, staging and user acceptance phases before committing systems into production
- Get a better grip on your change, configuration and release (CCR) management processes
If you’re interested than contact your VMware partner and maybe you’ll be the one winning that “VMWorld 2008” pass! I will try to get my hands on the product and see if I can find the time to test it.