Showing posts with label VMware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VMware. Show all posts

Friday, September 8, 2017

A New Day, A New Blog

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I have decided to post articles related to VMware, virtualization and cloud computing to a new blog:  http://vmclouds.e-wilkin.com

I will leave current posts as-is but new content will be posted to the new blog.  I will continue to post my other ramblings here moving forward.

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Thursday, July 28, 2016

VMworld 2016: The End of an Era

I sadly report that I will not be attending VMworld 2016 this year.  This will be the first conference I've missed - "13" really is an unlucky number!  I was not selected per the criteria my organization used to determine who goes and who stays.  I respect their decision, but that doesn't change the fact that I will be watching the general sessions remotely on a computer screen.  Yeah, that won't quite be the same - no assisting customers, meeting friends, attending sessions or keeping up with what's going on with partners in the Solutions Exchange this year for me.

My passion for the conference won't change - I still believe it to be the best IT conference and highly recommend attending.

So the VMworld Alumni Elite group will be at least one less this year.  What a prestigious group!   I know from meeting with these guys year after year that they have a real passion for VMworld, VMware and its products.  Guys - I'll catch up with you next time!

Its ironic - during my interview I was told that the surest way to not attend VMworld was to become a VMware employee.  My first year VMware decided to send my entire organization!  My second year they decided to send most of the organization, yours truly included.  This is my third year and it appears as though my luck has run out.

I did try multiple alternative options but none of those panned-out.  So all good things must come to an end?  C'est la vie - its the end of an era... and the start of a new era - carpe diem!

For those that are going - have a great conference!  For the reset of us, make sure to tune in to the general sessions which will be live-streamed again this year.  And don't forget about the breakout sessions that will be made available shortly after the conference.

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Thursday, February 11, 2016

Enabling the Digital Enterprise: VMware Announcements

VMware made several major product announcements this week and I'm super-excite about some of the improvements and new features coming our way.

Our EUC team is really firing on all cylinders and continues to update and integrate products.  In this case AirWatch, Horizon and Identity Manager are brought together with Workspace One.  Did you know we coined the term "Workspace" (well okay, a company we acquired years ago did).  I used to be one of those guys that connected to my View desktop and worked from there.  Now, more often than not I browse our internal Workspace One portal and launch whatever app I need to get work done.  How did I work without this before?

Also worth noting are several SDDC product updates.  The big news here is VSAN 6.2 - what an awesome release!  VSAN was ready to host your tier 1 applications with the release of 6.0 - now with 6.2's dedupe, compression and RAID5/6 features, the nay-sayers won't be able say it's not ready for the enterprise (well, they can but they would be wrong).

Here is a "Did you know" PSA: 
Did you know that if you use vSphere Replication to replicate VMs hosted on VSAN storage, you can set the RPO as low as 5 minutes?
Now you know.

Finally. take a look at the vCloud Suite pricing and packaging changes.  We've really change the Suites to refocus on what customer's really want - the tools needed to run a true SDDC datacenter (wait, isn't that redundant?).
Replay’s of this week's events are available here: http://www.vmware.com/digitalenterprise

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vROps Alert: One or more ports on the Distributed Port Group are experiencing network contention due to dropped packets

Here is a vROps problem experienced by one of my customers:
Alert: One or more ports are experiencing network connection
(One or more ports on the Distributed Port Group are experiencing network contention due to dropped packets)

There was no evidence in vCenter that packets were being dropped.  The customer found KB2105109: VMware vRealize Operations Manager counters report false dropped packets on vSphere Distributed Switches with the alert: One or more ports are experiencing network contention

However, this seems to only apply to vROps 6.0.x and the customer is running the 6.2.x release.  An SR was opened and the support tech recommended the fix per KB2052917: vCenter Server 5.1/5.5/6.0 performance charts report dropped network packets

Okay great, so a patch needs to be applied to the ESXi 5.5 host.  The customer tried to applied the patch via VUM but it was marked obsoleted.  "Obsoleted" is an Update Manager compliance state.  As explained in the Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager documentation:


This compliance state applies mainly to patches. The target object has a newer version of the patch. For example, if a patch has multiple versions, after you apply the latest version to the host, the earlier versions of the patch are in Obsoleted By Host compliance state.


(https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.update_manager.doc_50%2FGUID-EBAA4F4A-57E0-45ED-8730-4B851FC846A9.html)

Hmmm.... so the host has a newer version of the patch, so now what?

After some discussion we landed on the fact that the vCenter instance managing this host was likely the culprit as it has a patch level several versions behind the host.  I always recommend customers keep their vCenter and ESXi hosts at the same Update patch level.  Installing patches on hosts in-between major Updates is okay.  In this case, they were on different Update versions.

The vCenter instance was patched to the latest update and voila, the error disappeared from vROps.



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Monday, February 1, 2016

Horizon View Restart/Reboot Sequence

View admins - please make sure you restart View infrastructure servers in the proper order for fastest uptime!  I recently had a customer that rebooted vCenter and View servers in an effort to fix an apparent connection problem.  When they did not appear to be coming online fast enough, the admin rebooted them again.

Now normally rebooting these servers can cause ADLDS synchronization to take up to fifteen minutes or so, but rebooting them again, before the initial sync completes, can cause them to take thirty minutes or more - and then leave inconsistencies within the pools.

For more information on the proper boot sequence:
Restart order of the View environment to clear ADLDS (ADAM) synchronization in View 4.5, 4.6, 5.0, and 5.1

And to clear out any inconsistencies:
Manually deleting linked clones or stale virtual desktop entries from the View Composer database in VMware View Manager and VMware Horizon View


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Thursday, August 27, 2015

VMworld 2014 Recap

Well, VMworld 2015 is next week so I guess I'd better get this one published!  I actually found this sitting in my drafts, I was waiting for a picture to come through which took so long I forgot to go back and publish it after receiving it!  So here it is in all it's glory...

This was my first VMworld as an employee.  My new role gave me a unique perspective to the conference.  Having attended every previous conference as a VMware customer has given me knowledge and experience I can pass on to my customers so they can get the most out of the conference.

Consequently, I walked through the Solutions Exchange but didn't spend as much time there as I normally do.  I attended a whopping one break-out session, and all of the general sessions.  Why?  Because I spent most of my time with my customers - assisting them in some form or shape.  I also spent a lot of time at TAM Customer Central.  What is TCC you ask?  It's a top secret location we reserve for VMware TAM customers where we provide special break-out sessions not available to VMworld attendees, receptions and meeting rooms among other things.

The theme this year was NO LIMITS.  Here is some cool desktop wallpaper for you:

And here is the Moscone all dressed up:

We were asked to provide pics of us with our customers for use as a collage at VMworld to be displayed at various times such as just before and after the general sessions.  Here's the pic I sent in with "Mr. Corvette" Jarod and his red sports car that made us mini-celebrities for the week:

Another one of those TAM customer benefits is the Hands-on Labs VIP tour.  This gives select customers a behind-the-scenes look at HOL operations and how the whole thing is managed.  Check out these stats:


Its interesting that the NSX lab remained the most popular lab during the entire conference - indicates a lot of interest by our customers.  And, consequently I think, this product continues to gain momentum in the marketplace.

And pics of how we used Log Insight and vCOps to monitor the environment via custom dashboards:




Even though I attended as a VMware employee this year, I was still invited to the CTO party (I had customers in attendance, so I'm sure that helped):

Why yes Johnny, everything is better with bacon:




And a pic from the Alumni Elite pre-party party - the pic I was waiting for as it was taken by someone else's camera - which wouldn't be complete without a shot with the big guy (me=literally, Mr. Gelsinger=figuratively):

And finally, lookie at what I found:

I found a "Meet the Experts" area hidden (not really) on the third floor of Moscone West.  If you have any technical or strategic product questions, these are the guys to ask and anyone can sign-up.  I highly recommend this resource if we offer it again in 2015.

Here's to seeing you there next year (he says with bacon in one hand, bourbon in the other)!

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Friday, August 22, 2014

Back in Black!

I hit the sack.  It's been too long I'm glad to be back...

Yes, it has been one year since I've blogged on VMware and virtualization.  Well, in my defense, a lot has happened keeping me from spending quality time with my beloved blog.

My biggest excuse = I joined VMware!  I am a Technical Account Manager for customers in the Dayton/Cincinnati area.  Shameless plug = if you would like to know more about what a TAM can do for you, please reach out to me by leaving a comment and I'll get back to you.

I was warned that the first year is like drinking from the fire hose and I found that to be true, but in a good way.  So yes, I did neglect my blog to the point of having to delete drafts that are no longer relevant.

But the good new is:  I'm back!  I've personally re-committed to posting articles on a more-frequent/regular basis (although not on a specific schedule, no change there).

Note that the opinions in my blog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect that of my employer.  Also note the subject matter won't change either - I won't post "newsie" articles as there are too many other blogs that do a good job of that.

What I will publish are articles describing technical problems I'm seeing in the field along with their resolution.  I may also post articles of a more strategic nature on occasion.

My experience with customers in the field gives me a unique perspective (and fresh content!) on many IT topics.  Three of my accounts are in healthcare so I may also publish articles discussing challenges specific to that segment.

Finally, next week is VMworld 2014!  I'm doing things a little differently this year - instead of one VMworld recap article (which I may still publish), I'm going to try to post bits through-out the week so stay tuned!

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Sunday, February 2, 2014

Post-VMworld 2013 Recap

Okay, yes, it's been too long coming, but it's finally here - my VMworld recap.  Now, I have a good excuse, but you'll have to read the next post for that!  Note that most of this was written shortly after the event, so in that since the content is "timely".  So here it is, enjoy!

Theme: Defy Convention - on the steps, pretty cool:

Ten years baby, yes!

There was the "10th Annual" wall this year where we all got our pics posted (and by all, and mean every attendee that wanted to have their pic posted).  We were one of the first pics taken so they're at the bottom of the "1".  Can you see me?


No?  Okay, then here's a close-up:

VMworld seemed to be about one word for VMware this year: focus.  I could see the focus (or re-focus in some cases) on the entire stack from the virtual infrastructure to hybrid cloud computing.  This focus seems to be coming from a renewed customer focus = they're really listening.  Proof-in-point = The shifting of vCloud Director features to vSphere and vCloud Automation Center, leaving the multi-tenant capabilities for cloud providers.  I really believe we have Pat Gelsinger to thank for this along with his management team.  With this renewed focus on customers, market and product/feature mix, I think VMware has really put itself in the position to continue to be on the forefront of innovation and an agent of change in the IT world.

Here are some other words that really defined VMworld 2013:
SSD
Flash
Software Defined x (datacenter, networking, storage, etc.)
Convergence (this time, as in compute, network and storage)
Imagine Dragons/Train
Alumni Elite (34 left!)
Server-side flash
Server-side cache
VSAN
vSphere 5.5
NSX
Did I mention SSDs?

Location: San Francisco this year and again next year - I really have nothing else to say about it.  I go there for the conference.  I actually prefer Vegas, but to each his own.

Keynotes: As I mentioned, this year was about a renewed focus on product mix and the datacenter stack including the following four areas - Compute, Storage, Networking and Operations.

The big story in Compute is the announcement of vSphere 5.5.  This will be a big release with a many improvements and new features.  I won't detail them in this post but you can read about them here:
https://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10385

The big story in Storage was, of course, VMware's new VSAN feature/technology.  And they announced a public beta you can download here:
http://www.vmware.com/vsan-beta-register

VMworld App:  Much better this year.  WiFi still weak during the general sessions, and it didn't help that the app was updated a half-million times during the event but I suppose there were a lot of schedule changes(?).

Alumni Elite Event:  Whoa!  The 10 year Alumni Elite event was, in a word, awesome!  They bused us down to Candlestick, er, AT&T park an hour before the VMworld party.  We got our own locker in the Giants locker room, along with great food and drink.  I'm not a big fan of clam chowder but it was so highly recommended I figured I had nothing to lose.  Holy cow, it was fantastic!

There were many highlights on this night, meeting VMware's CMO, Robin Matlock, was certainly one:

Getting to talk shop with VMware's CEO, Pat Gelsinger again this year was fantastic:


I also got to meet VMware's COO, Carl Eschenbach.  Let me tell you, all three of these executives were very down-to-earth, highly energetic, and very excited about VMware and the future of IT.  I really didn't expect them to be as genuine and accessible as they were but I was pleasantly surprised.  I really shouldn't have been since VMware is a great company that attracts great talent.

Later that evening we get to try the batting cages - 60MPH pitches, not a bad workout.  Out of six pitches, I made solid contact with three of them, whiffed one, got out of the way of one and fouled the last.  Pat is up after me and let me just say he made me look bad, and this was supposedly after only two hours of sleep!

Finally, I was told there are 34 of us left.  I only count 27 in this picture, so several didn't make it to the pre-party event.  We seem to lose about 10 per year.  25 next year?  I wonder who will be the last one standing?

VMworld Party:  Time to head out to the party:

It was a real "festive" atmosphere.  The entertainment for the night was Imagine Dragons and Train.  I thought both groups put on a great show.  Train was a bit of a surprise for me - I didn't realize how entertaining they would be nor did I realize how many of their songs I know until I heard them:
 

Solutions Exhibit:  There was another record number of exhibitors this year.  As always I highly recommend hitting the floor and talking to as many vendors as you can.  It a great way to discover new tools or solutions you may not have known even existed.  No unique schwag to report on this year, however there was still a lot of it if you wanted it.  And again, I didn't win anything - not that I tried very hard though.  There's always a group that hits it really hard.  I guess I don't have the patience, especially when I know the odds are quite high against me.

Attendance:  If there's one thing that's consistent about VMworld, it's that the attendance numbers go up every year and this year was no different:  over 30,000 - another record.

Break-out Sessions: I attended more of these this year than previous years and found them to be very useful.  This encourages me to go back to VMworld.com and view the ones I missed.  If you can't make VMworld, I highly recommended buying a subscription to gain access to the sessions.

Hands-on Labs:  These are all about timing - if you go at the right time, there's little-to-no line.  On the other hand, I saw lines that wrapped around the corner and outside of the building(!).  I'll try to take note of the best times next year, but for now my advice is if the line is long, keep checking back.  On a positive note, I did notice the line seemed to move at a decent pace.

Adventure:  So we asked a cabbie to take us to Gordon Biersch brewery/restaurant.  We had gone there the previous year and they had good food, great beer and scenery over-looking the bay.  So he drops us off at what looks like the right spot and takes off.  Walking up the steps we saw this:

Gordon Biersch = closed.  New Mozilla offices = opened.  At least it was tech-related?  Weird.  As we were walking back toward the pier, we stumbled upon an indoor/outdoor restaurant with a decent beer selection, so not all was lost!

So another great VMworld again this year.  What will next year bring?  All we know for certain is that it will be in San Francisco at the Moscone Center, August 25th-28th.

One last thing... why were there Hyper-V books in the store?

Until next year...
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Monday, June 3, 2013

2013 VMware vExpert!

Looks like 2013 is going to be another stellar vYear!  I found out last week that I was awarded the vExpert designation again this year.  The official announcement and list can be found here:
http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2013/05/vexpert-2013-awardees-announced.html

VMware has a good thing going with this program - it gives them the opportunity to recognize those that are active in the virtualization community and provides benefits to the receivers from both VMware and it's partners.  Here's a partial list of the benefits I've received thus far:

  • Eval licenses from VMware
  • Polo shirt from Tintri (now x2)
  • Free year subscription from Train Signal
  • $100 off VMworld registration
  • Free license for V-locity Performance Accelerator from Condusiv
  • Access to various VMware beta programs like vSphere and Project NEE


On a related note, I also completed registration for VMworld 2013 last week.  A decade of VMworld!  Keep watching for my VMworld recap in early September.

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Monday, April 29, 2013

VMworld 2013: Are you ready?

VMworld 2013 - 10 years of VMworlds!  Registration is open - time to sign-up.  There were 45 of us that have attended every VMworld.  I predict 35 this year - time to start an office pool.

I'm on the VMworld Content Committee again this year and I'm seeing some fantastic sessions in the Business Continuity and Storage tracks.  Some are some reoccurring themes again this year such as Cloud and the Software Defined Datacenter, but I'm seeing more focus on specific aspects of these concepts - backup in the cloud, cross-cloud backup and recovery, Software Defined Storage and Software Defined Networking.  I'm seeing more on distributed storage than in past years.  I saw a demo of VMware's distributed storage tech at a session last year (I think they were calling vSAN).  I was very impressed.  Lot's of questions remain on scalability, performance and of course, when it will be released.  But given they had a working prototype last year, I have to believe it will be soon.

I remember the first VMworld - everything was anemic compared to today's event: standing-room-only sessions (if you could get in), a couple of dozen exhibitors, etc.  I do remember being blown away by some stats given by Diane Greene in the General Session, especially those on processor utilization - Mainframes=85%, Unix/mid-range=50%, x86/Wintel=5-15% (or something very similar).  Unfortunately, this video is not on the VMworld site.  However, for a blast down memory lane, check this one out:
http://www.vmworld.com/docs/DOC-4087

I won't get to sign-up of another week or two but as my mom used to say "beggars can't be choosers".  And that's okay - the main thing will be getting a decent hotel within a decent walking distance.  May not be
possible this year but we'll see.

Overall it looks to be another good one.  What will be theme?  The party?  Who's the band? I'm guessing VMware has something special planned this year.  Another office pool?

See you there!
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

ERROR: Call fails for “HostDatastoreSystem.QueryVmfsDatastore- CreateOptions”

I've run into this several times now when re-deploying servers as iSCSI SAN storage systems for vSphere.  What happens is there's an old filesystem partition (or two) on the device\disk so ESXi refuses to configure it as a datastore.

To fix this problem you have to delete these partition(s) from the device\disk.

Word of warning:  make sure you delete the correct partition!  If you delete the wrong partitions, you may have to recover/re-install ESXi.  The correct partitions should not be difficult to find, but now if you screw something up you can't blame me - you've been warned!

Use the vSphere client - on the ESXi host go to the Configuration tab, Storage, Devices.  Take note of the device name your trying to configure as a new datastore.

SSH into the ESXi host.
Run the following command:
fdisk -l

This will list the partitions on that disk device.

Now you need to delete these partitions:
fdisk /dev/disks/[DEVICE_NAME]

When prompted, delete each partition.  Press "d" for delete, then "1" for partition 1.  Do this for all partitions on this device.

When finished, press "w" to write the changes to disk.

You should now be able to go back into the vSphere client and create a new datastore using this device!

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Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Using the vSphere 5 CLI for Storage Configuration

When Adding a new host, SAN or LUN to your vSphere environment there are some CLI commands and configuration settings you should consider.  Since Windows 7 is my primary desktop OS, I use the VMware vSphere CLI for Windows.  You can download the latest version from VMware's downloads site.

Before using any of the commands below, please review your SAN manufacturers best practices documentation for vSphere environments.  Can't find any?  Then you bought the wrong SAN!  Seriously, most manufacturers provide something around documentation - if Google doesn't help try using Bing... better yet, try contacting your VAR.

View Devices and Their Settings
To view devices and some of their related settings, use the following command:
esxcli -s [HOSTNAME] -u root -p [PASSWORD] storage nmp device list

Set Storage Array Type and Path Selection Policy
One of the first things you'll want to do is change the DEFAULT Path Selection Policy (PSP) for whatever storage array types (SATP) you're using.  This way, when adding a new LUN/device, the type will be set to the proper type automatically.  Most modern arrays support ROUND ROBIN.  To change the array type, use the following command:
esxcli -s [ESXHOST] -u root -p [PASSWORD] storage nmp satp set --default-psp VMW_PSP_RR --satp VMW_SATP_ALUA (or VMW_SATP_CX, etc.)

Note that this will not change/update existing LUNs/devices.  I recommend using the vSphere client for this unless you have many that need to be updated.  In this case, use the following command:
FOR /F %G IN ('esxcli --server [HOSTNAME] --username root --password [PASSWORD] storage nmp device list ^| findstr naa.600') DO esxcli --server [HOSTNAME] --username root --password [PASSWORD] storage nmp device set --device %G --psp VMW_PSP_RR

Note 1: In the above command, I loop through and set the RR policy for all devices that begin with "naa.600" - set the NAA ID for your environment as needed.

Note 2: the Linux command uses grep but Windows has FINDSTR.  Took a bit for me to figure out but if nothing else, this is the big find in this article - your welcome!

Set the IOPs Value
Finally, most array manufacturers recommend setting IOPS to "1".  To change the IOPs parameter, use the following command (again, thank you FINDSTR!):
FOR /F %G IN ('esxcli --server [HOSTNAME] --username root --password [PASSWORD] storage nmp device list ^| findstr naa.6005') DO esxcli --server [HOSTNAME] --username root --password [PASSWORD] storage nmp psp roundrobin deviceconfig set -d %G --iops 1 --type iops

Note:  As in the previous command, I loop through and set the IOPs parameter for devices that start with "naa.600" - set this for your environment as needed.

Now the "devices" hosted on your array should be optimally configured for use by vSphere 5.  Don't forget to go through and check each host.

Other Helpful Commands

esxcli storage vmfs extent list
esxcli storage core device detached list
esxcli storage core device detached remove -d [NAA ID]
esxcli storage core adapter rescan [ -A vmhba# | --all ]
esxcli storage filesystem list
esxcli storage filesystem unmount [-u <UUID> | -l <label> | -p <path> ]



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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

vSphere 5.1 Upgrade: Home Lab

Being a vExpert has its benefits, one of which is getting a year-long evaluation license for VMware vCloud Suite 5 Enterprise.  Since this includes vSphere 5.1 (vCenter and ESXi), I was inspired to get my home lab back up and running again.

Heads-up warning:  this stuff is never as easy as it's supposed to be.  We had an old saying at my previous employer: "it takes 100 hours"!  When someone complained that they were spending too much time on a task, the joke was always, "did you put your 100 hours in?"  Anyway, I digress...

Setting Up the Environment
The first step was getting my old/used Dell 2950 server racked and connected.  Racking it up and connecting to a KVM was easy.  Connecting it to my network was not.  I recently moved my old rack out of my office to an unfinished part of my basement - with no network drops, of course.  So I bought a small 4-port GbE switch and 50ft cable with the idea of running the cable to my existing switch still located in my office.  Since my office is in the finished part of my basement, I needed to run the cable through the ceiling and down the far wall.  I had done this several times using a draw-string to pull the cable through.  Well this time the string decided to break - I heard a snap! - the cable didn't even make it half way.

Great, now I have to figure out how to fish the cable through and find it to pull it back down near the area where my switch lives.  Long story short, there went my first 50 hours, but I did finally get the cable and new pull string through.  Did I mention that I hate pulling cable?

Physical Server Installation and Configuration
Next up - updating BIOS and component firmware of the server.  This went w/o a hitch.  The Remote Access Card works great, no need to stand in front of the server in the basement.

I then installed ESXi 5.1 to a 2GB Kingston flash drive plugged into the back of the server.  Again, installation completes successfully.  I rebooted the server, connected via the vSphere client and configured the standard settings - NTP time, local datastore, etc.

Installing the First VM
I created a VM to host the Active Directory domain controller.  I decided to use Windows Server 2012 since this was a brand new install in a new home lab network.  This allows me to explore/learn the new features of AD on Sever 2012 and give me some future-proofing.

Installing vCenter 5.1
With the domain controller up and running it was time to create a VM for vCenter 5.1.  I'm using the simple installation method since this is for a home lab and I'm keeping all of the components on the same VM.  I decided to use Windows Server 2012 again to be consistent, if for no other reason.  I know this is not supported per the compatibility list, but have read other admin using this version with success.  Not my luck though.  I got an error message stating the the installation was interrupted before it could be completed, and that I should check the logs.  Hmmm... I tried again using a different service account during the installation but no luck.  I even tried logging on as the local administrator security context and still no luck - each time I got the same error.  So vCenter 5.1 simple install on Windows Server 2012 = FAIL.  There goes another 25 hours!

At this point, I've decided to try the vCenter Server appliance.  This should actually be the easist and fastest way to deploy a new instance of vCenter, right?  There are other benefits as well: this will be the only option within the next several releases, the appliance is easy to upgrade, it includes a better, built-in database (vPostgreSQL) and most of the limitations of the 5.0 vCenter appliance have been removed.  Seems like a no-brainer.  Too bad it didn't work either(!).  I'm not sure how a brand new instance deployed on a brand new install of ESXi can fail, but it did.  The OVA deployed fine, vCenter appears to start fine, but 2 plugins failed to start: "VMware vCenter Storage Monitoring and Reporting" and " vCenter Service Status".    The error is "the request failed because the remote server took too long to respond".  Manually enabling the storage monitoring plugin works, gut the service status plugin still fails.  I'd had enough of that so I deleted the VM.  There goes another 10 hours!

Since that experiment failed, I wanted to go back to using a Windows OS which is not a bad thing since I suspect that this is what most environments will be using for some time to come.  Getting back to using a compatible OS, I deployed a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM.  Again, I start a simple installation of vCenter.  This time, I get a different (SSO) error:
Error 29148.STS configuration error.

What the heck!?!?  This is a plan, vanilla install on a newly built VM!  Now I'm losing confidence of vCenter 5.1 and SSO.  I decided to try again, this time choosing to use the local network account for the service account and making sure I choose as many defaults as possible (although I was mostly doing this previously).  And finally, SUCCESS!!! (And final 15 hours!)

I logged on to the new vCenter instance via the vSphere client, added and licensed the new ESXi host and everything looked good.

Conclusion
Whew!  At the end of the day, I wished I could have used the vCenter appliance - it would have been more than enough for my little home lab.  But the Windows-based vCenter still works great and now I'm ready to move on.

Next up:  Web Client and Update Manager installations.  I don't expect any problems (famous last words).  Later this week or early next week I'll post how this went along with the upgrade in my company's dev/test environment.  Quick preview:  SSO issues galore.

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Monday, January 14, 2013

Extending A vSphere Replicated Virtual Disk

I recently had a VM that needed one of its virtual disks extended.  vSphere Replication needed to be disabled for this disk before vCenter would allow this operation.
When reconfiguring replication for this VM/disk, it detected the original/smaller disk:
Duplicate File Found. Do you want to use this file as an initial copy?
If you choose yes, it will try to use this file instead of re-sending the entire virtual disk.  This option didn't work. I think the files are just too different (size) and it doesn't know how to handle it.

If you choose no, you can configure a different datastore, but it won't let you use the same one.  This would leave the original replicated virtual disk out there unnecessarily taking up space.

I ended up manually deleting the original replicated VMDK and had VR resend the virtual disk again.  No big deal this time as it was just Disk 0/C: drive but this could be a real PitA if you need to extend a larger disk.

Lessons learned:

  1. Size your drives properly the first time.
  2. Consider creating a new disk instead of extending an already large virtual disk (30, 40, 50GB+).





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Friday, September 14, 2012

VMworld 2012 Best of Show Winners

Here are the VMworld 2012 Best of Show winners straight up from TechTarget.  I can't say I understand all of the choices and you have to take them for what they are - press picks, but most of these products are worth another look.  I share a couple of thoughts after some sections, all just my opinion, of course:

Business Continuity and Data Protection
Gold: FalconStor RecoverTrac 2.5, FalconStor Software
Silver: EMC Avamar 6.1, EMC Corp.
Bronze: Symantec NetBackup 5220, Symantec Corp.

Comment: How does yet another proprietary hardware box from EMC win silver?  Where's vSphere replication with SRM, especially now that it's free with vSphere?  I saw other products at VMworld that were more deserving.

Security and Compliance for Virtualization
Gold: Layer 7 API Portal, Layer 7 Technologies
Silver: None
Bronze: None

Comment:  No Silver or Bronze?  That seems odd.  These guys need to try harder.

Virtualization Management
Gold: HotLink Hybrid Express, HotLink Corp.
Silver: Control Console 7.1, CiRBA Inc.
Bronze: Puppet Enterprise 2.5, Puppet Labs

Comment:  HotLink has some cool products, but the other two?  Again, I saw better management products at VMworld.

Hardware for Virtualization
Gold: Tintri VMstore T540 with Tintri OS 1.4, Tintri Inc.
Silver: Nutanix Complete Cluster, Nutanix
Bronze: Zebi Storage Arrays, Tegile Systems Inc.

Comment:  All of these products are cool and worth a look.  Nutanix won this last year and has since exploded in growth and mind share - I heard several people talking positively about them at the conference.  They should have included SimpliVity and Scale Computing.

Desktop Virtualization
Gold: Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI, Atlantis Computing Inc.
Silver: SysTrack MarketPlace, 6.1, Lakeside Software Inc.
Bronze: HP t410 All-in-One Zero Client, Hewlett-Packard Co.

Comment:  Again, all products worth looking at.  Only I would have included Teradici PCoIP, they now provide a solutions for Microsoft RDS and "shared GPU" putting them on par (or close to?) Citrix HDX 3D Pro.

Private Cloud Computing Technologies
Gold: Piston Enterprise OpenStack, Version 1, Piston Cloud Computing, Inc.
Silver: ManageIQ's Enterprise Virtualization Management Suite, Version 4
Bronze: Embotics V-Commander, Version 4.5, Embotics

Public and Hybrid Cloud Computing Technologies
Gold: DynamicOps Cloud Suite 4.5, DynamicOpsby VMware Inc.
Silver: Skytap Cloud, Skytap Inc.
Bronze: None

New Technology
Gold:  Systems Management Virtualization, 1.0, Intigua
Silver: EqualLogic Storage Blade Array, Dell Inc.
Bronze: XtremIO Flash Array, Version 1.1, XtremIO

Best of Show
Winner: HotLink Hybrid Express, HotLink
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Friday, September 7, 2012

Post-VMworld 2012 Recap

Another good year for VMware and VMworld.  This year the themed seemed to be 'integration'.  VMware announced vCloud Suite 1.5 which includes what is just the beginning of integration between various VMware products.  I spoke with several VMware developers at the conference and this message was pretty consistent.  Here's the rundown on other aspects of the conference:

Location:  From Vegas, back to San Francisco!  Well, the food was much better than 2010, I'll give them that.  But still - blankets to eat lunch outside (again), really?  I walked back to the "hang space" which was perfect.  At one point I was with a group that included one of the event coordinators and it was really interesting to hear things like how early they have to book locations and all of the logistics that go into the event.  After that discussion, I have a better appreciation for what it takes to put on an event of this size and will therefore stop complaining about the location(!).

Key Notes:  Last year was all about VMware's vision for cloud and desktop computing.  This year was more about integration.  They announced products that were consistent with both the "vision" and "integration" themes:
  • vCloud Suite 1.5:  This is the big integration piece, combining vSphere infrastructure with their cloud and management products
  • vSphere 5.1 with vSphere Data Protection based on EMC Avamar technology
  • vSphere Replication - previously tied to SRM, now a separate product feature
  • VMware Horizon Suite:  Integrating several desktop and mobile products including AppBlast, Horizon App Manager, Octopus, ThinApp and Horizon Mobile.
They also announced the end for the vRAM "tax"!  This brought the second biggest applause of the morning (and it was big).  Even bigger was Paul Maritz's 'handing over the reigns' to VMware's new CEO, Pat Gelsinger.  These guys have known each other for some time - they both worked as engineers for Intel.  Small world.
I had the opportunity to meet Pat at the CTO party and he seemed to be a genuinely nice down-to-earth guy.  Let just hope he executes(!).  I highly recommend watching the General Session key notes here: 

VMworld App:  Not much love for the app this year.  Unfortunately last year's was better.  This year it was riddled with performance problems.  Even the live polling was a miss for me.  It obviously worked for some people.  By time the question loaded, the poll was closed so I didn't get to vote on much.  WiFi performance was spotty too.  Both the app and WiFi access improved by day 3, but by then the damage is done.  On a more positive note, the VMworld 2012 community hosted on Socialcast was fantastic.  VMware is shutting this down by the end of September.  I understand why, but have to wonder if this isn't a better tool than VMworld.com - I think it's open for debate.  I hope they provide a Socialcast site again next year, maybe making access available a littler earlier.

Alumni Elite Event: It's been 9 years in a row now (which means next year is the big 10, a decade of VMworld!).  The dinner was mostly anti-climatic.  We landed on Forbes Island, except it's not an island, but a floating boat/barge kind-of-thing. 

Here's the lighthouse - fantastic view from up there:

Whoa... looking down:

Here's the restaurant and lighthouse from a distance.  Notice the lack of sea lions.  Those planks were full two years ago.  Apparently they follow the schools of Mackerel of which there aren't many this year in the bay:


I have to say the food was excellent.  The gift was just "meh", but it was a gift so I won't complain (too much).  On the bus over, one guy said he thought we were getting a MacBook Pro.  I'm betting he was disappointed!  I had to laugh at that as I thought an iPad at best.  Last years iPod Shuffle and Vegas show was an awesome surprise.  In the event planner's defense, she was new to the whole thing and maybe not given much time to put it together.  I expect next year will be better.
When they started recognizing Alumni Elite, it started with 55 of us 3 years ago.  Last year, the number dropped to 45.  This year there were 32.  Technically, there's less than that as they are including guys that may have missed years of the US conference, but attended the European VMworld.

CTO Party:  This was a great party again this year.  As I mentioned before I got to meet Pat Gelsinger and I also met Steve Herrod.  Both guys were accommodating.  I had drank a couple on an empty stomach before meeting either of them so hopefully I didn't embarrass myself!  See drink in hand (sorry, crappy cell camera pics - this is a good justification for having a decent camera on your phone, right?  Will I ever get this chance again?):
 
ARRITDOR was here!

VMworld Party:  I stayed at the CTO party right up until the start of the VMworld party (and then some).  By time I got to the hall, the opening band, Morning Parade, on played 2-3 more songs.  Which is good because I'm not a fan.  It reminded me of the Killers, a.k.a whiny Euro blandness.  Not really rock 'n roll in my book.  But maybe the kids love it and I'm out of touch, IDK.

Now we're in-between bands and they have this video board/music mash-up thing which is cool (well, except maybe for the Sound of Music, not sure why that was included).  And once Marley's "One Love"  started the party was on!

So out comes Jon Bon Jovi and he gets right down to business.  And for the most part, he's all business the entire show.  Not much interaction with the crowd.  I think he took a que from the Killers.  Oh he did have some witty banter, something like - 'sing-along with me, if you do you can put that you sang with Bon Jovi on your resume, the girls know that's a good thing'.  And 'come on guys you can do better than that, I flew a long way to sing for you tonight', or something like that.  Really?  I'm thinking the guy has a big head.  Maybe I missing something here.

Lack of audience connection aside, he did look like he was having fun and I know everyone around me was having fun.  He did three Bon Jovi numbers - Bad Medicine, You Give Love a Bad Name and Wanted Dead or Alive - and a handful of covers.  His encore was Wilson Pickett's "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)".  Hmmm,  would not have been my pick for an encore song but that's what he did.

Overall he was entertaining and his band was pretty good, the stand-out being the violinist.  She did some phenomenal playing during a short jam at the end of the Who's 'Baba O'Riley'.  If you can find it on YouTube I suggest watching.  Again, sorry for the crappy cell phone pics:
  


Solutions Exhibit: Wow!  This best and biggest one yet!  This was really one of the big highlights for me.  I believe it in everyone's interest to spend a lot of time here talking to vendors and discovering new products and solutions.  This year was no different in this regards.  I brought back ideas that included several different products I had not even heard of before this event.  Here are some pics of the exhibit floor:
 

 

The swag was really flowing too.  Many t-shirts, too many... made it to Splunk's booth and got a fantastic T before they ran out this year.  Other vendors should take note - make a T that people actually want to wear, not with just a giant name/logo on it.  People will actually wear it more often than just doing lawn work(!).  The swag of the year award has to go to... drum roll...   sources unnamed for the rubber chicken!  Here it is on my button wall with Darth Tatar protection (yes, weird, I know):

Hmmm.... so what is the rubber chicken all about?  Well, I guess you'll just have to "find" out next year when you take a hands-on lab.

The Whiptail booth had a special guest.  I got to meet this guy and get his autograph.  The line was long but the wasn't wasn't too bad:

You can find more photos of me and other attendees here: WhipTail's Facebook Photos Page.  SimpliVity had this junk, er, I mean super car in their booth.  Do you think I'll win an Audi R8?

I've never really "won" anything at VMworld over the last nine years.  I'm not going to start holding my breath now.

Attendance:  Record attendance again this year, roughly 21,000 attendees.  And guess what, another hurricane!  This time it was hurricane Isaac which caused some serious flooding, but was much less powerful than Katrina.  Actually, this was the year of personal tragedy - my wife's van blew a transmission, our home theater receiver went bad and our Acer tablet stopped working.  What's worse, one of my son's slept-walked and fell down the stairs.  My wife rushed him to the ER and luckily he checked out okay, just a big knot on top of his head (whew!).  Both the van and receiver have been fixed now.  Still waiting on the Acer tablet.  So... yeah, getting a Samsung next time!

Signage:  For whatever reason, CRN continues to capture the "wacky" side of VMworld.  Check out their expose here: 20 Weird and Wacky Scenes from VMworld 2012.  The sumo wrestler was hilarious - they had a 20 foot tall version outside on the street corner.  Unfortunately, I was unable to snap a pic of Oracle's taxi signage, but it was there again this year except it read "4x more scalable" with the added "2x faster than VMware".  LOL (again)!

Takeaways: New for this year, I'm including this section of high-level takeaways.  These are things I learned that were interesting or some-how relevant to my current workplace:

  • Pretty much all that was said in the General Sessions (see above)
  • Vidyo had an impressive video conferencing solution
  • vExpert Meeting: they're watching us!
  • Symantec Lunch 'n Learn for vExperts:
    • They have figured out a way to "dedupe" file scanning in their endpoint protection product
    • The feature is called client cache and it looks to actually reduce disk I/O generated by file scans
    • AV vendors take note!
    • Only 5 of the 20 vExperts showed-up - I felt bad for them and have to say shame on those for not showing  up!  If you want vendors to keep extending privileges to us like this, you need to keep your commitments.
  • HP Blogger/vExpert Briefing:
    • Only backup/recovery solution that truly integrates with vCenter Director
    • New switch that offers higher-end virtual VLAN and routing features for significantly less cost.  No separate feature licenses unlike Cisco.
    • They cut the cost of the P4000/Lefthand VSA by what looks to be half.  They are even selling in 100-packs for hosting/managed providers so they can deploy and utilized local disk space on their servers.  It's now called HP StoreVirtual VSA.
  • Session - vMotion Futures:
    • Unified vMotion - no longer requires shared storage
    • Performance - nearly as fast as traditional Storage vMotion
    • Guest Performance Penalty (CPU, memory, storage) = same as Storage vMotion
    • Futures = Unified vMotion across vCenter instances
  • Session - Storage Performance Troubleshooting
    • AV scans generate high I/O crushing storage performance (nothing new there)
    • Mis-aligned guest OS disk partitions can also have a large negative impact on storage performance.  If you're a Netapp customer you're in luck, they have tools and technology to handle this on their arrays.
  • Virtualization monitoring (current project):
    • "Incumbent" = vKernel vOPS Server Standard
    • Others on the list: VMware vCenter Operations, VMTurbo
    • Add Xangati (per discussion in Solutions Exhibit booth)
  • End-to-end monitoring:
    • SecurActive's Performance Vision = these guys have an intriguing end-to-end monitoring solution.  More investigation required, add to the short list.
    • Currently looked at eG Innovations, Citrix EdgeSight and Microsoft Operations Manager
    • Not many tools do true end-to-end monitoring (or do it well)
  • Server-side cache:  based on my discussions with HP and Fusion-io in the Solutions Exhibit, this technology is in its very early stage.  Fusion-io has a product called ioTurbine but more investigation is needed to determine if it meets our technical and budgetary requirements.
  • Vendors continue to push "cloud" and cloud-related products/technologies.  In all of my networking, I didn't talk to anyone who was moving full-bore to the cloud and totally embracing it.  I thought I would at least run across someone that was doing hybrid cloud but no luck.  Obviously there are companies doing this but I found this telling.


So yes, another great conference this year.  As previously mentioned, next year will be number 10 for VMworld and I think we're all expecting big things.  VMworld returns to San Francisco again next year at the Moscone Center, August 26-29.  See you there!



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