VMGuru.nl – I choose (a virtual) life!

Today HP announced the release of the new ProLiant G6 server line.

After visiting an NDA session with HP on VMworld Europe 2009 a lot of new G6 ProLiant servers were shown. Nice new hardware build up for even better supporting virtualization in common.

All models are made energy efficient and ready for supporting virtualization. Also other things improved like support for the Flex-10 technology, Intel Xeon 5500 CPU’s (Nehalem) which can give 25% more power for virtual workloads and more and more memory banks to fill.

(more…)

Last week I reported a bug to VMware and yesterday I got their reply stating that this issue is solved in VMware ESX 3.5 Update 4 which they had just released. Damn those VMware guys are fast

Update 4 has build number 153875, requires a VMware Tools update and includes the following changes:

• Expanded Support for Enhanced vmxnet Adapter
• Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series
• QLogic Fibre Channel Adapter Driver Update
• Emulex Fibre Channel Adapter Driver Update
• LSI megaraid_sas and mptscsi Storage Controller Driver Update
• Newly Supported Guest Operating Systems
• Newly Supported Management Agents
• Newly Supported I/O Devices
  • SAS Controllers and SATA Controllers
  • Network Cards
  • Expanded Support for Intel E1000 network interface
  • Onboard Management Processors
  • Storage Arrays

More information can be found in the VMware ESX 3.5 Update 4 release notes

Thanks VMware for this quick fix

While I was doing some research for different customers I needed to calculate the power consumption and how many racks I need. So I collected the links to different calculation models from various vendors.

The tools I found were the following:
Dell Data Center Capacity Planner (online)

HP Site Preparation tool

IBM BladeCenter and System x Power Configurator

If you know tools that do the same, but for another server vendor, please let us know. That way we can keep this list up to date.

In the last week these items are added or edited in VMware’s Knowledgebase at http://kb.vmware.com

(more…)

Now most of our loyal followers know, I usually do not post any content on this blog other than things related to the hosting of website. It’s my “job” to keep this part of the infrastructure running (well, that’s not quite how it is, but that’s another subject for another post ). In my day-to-day job I see a lot of infrastructures pass by and recently I started to notice that some of my colleagues look at virtualisation as an application. They think in boxes.. “we need a DC, and a filer, and blahblahblah”…So I thought, let’s post an entry here and see if you all have something to say about it.

(more…)

I know it has been a while so maybe it’s old news to some of you but we have to support our VMGuru-founder, Scott Herold. Scott released chapter 4 of his VMware Infrastructure 3, Advanced technical Design Guide and it can be downloaded (for free) here. A great initiative and a must for every VMware Architect.

As virtualization freaks on this planet we sell virtualiziation solutions to clients with the motivation that it will save on power, cooling, space, etc and therefore we reduce the CO2-emission (we should receive government funding ) If you support this motivation you will also like ‘Earth hour‘.

In short, on March 31, 2007 people in Sydney decided to take a stand against climate change and 2.2 million people turned off their lights for 1 hour.

This caught the attention of the world and went global. In 2008 the world united and in 400 cities in 35 countries around the world, 50 million people turned off their lights for 1 hour.

On March 28, 2009 Earth hour will return.

We experienced some trouble with the “User Photo” plugin which caused a load of PHP code to be displayed in the comments.

We couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause and we decided to disable it. Now I’m no PHP hero (actually, far from it) but I’ve been through the code and I cannot find anything wrong inside.

So, to cut it short, it’s not working, it’s no disaster, we can live without it for now, so we’ll keep it deactivated for now.

Cheers,
Froos

Today Dell EqualLogic introduced their new PS6000 series iSCSI SANs. The new models in this serie are the PS6000E, PS6000X, PS6000XV, PS6000S and the PS6500E.

One of the most interesting models is the PS6000S. This PS6000S is an enterprise-class iSCSI SAN with SSD technology and is offering an affordable and easy means to bring the low latency performance benefits of SSD technology. The PS6000S provides higher IOPS and as little as 1/3rd the latency of 15k rpm disk arrays, ideal for challenging applications, such as virtual desktop implementations such as VMware View with linked clone technology. The Solid State Drives (SSD) provide low-latency and high-IOPS.

(more…)

Selecting physical server hardware while rounding up the business case is always a fun exercise, what do you need and what is smart too choose?

A question you should definitely ask yourself is are we going to scale up or to scale out or do both? With scaling up you will put more CPU power, Memory and network bandwidth in your physical servers to accommodate more virtual servers on it. With scaling out you just put another physical server box into the datacenter racks with the same dimensions as the other physical servers.

The pros and cons for scaling out versus scaling up.

(more…)

Yesterday I ran into VMware HA problems again. With my past HA troubleshooting experiences I thought configuring HA wouldn’t be a problem any more but unfortunately it bit me in the ass again.

We all know VMware ESX implementations where not all information, access, etc is available when you start with the installation. Exactly this was the case at this project. I only had 4 ESX hosts connected to the network and an EqualLogic SAN and the network was limited to the rack so only the ESX hosts and the SAN were connected. The network guys had to establish a connecting to the HQ but to do that the had to change IP addresses.

I installed the complete VMware Infrastructure with the new addresses waiting for the connection to be made so I could add the servers, like vCenter, to the corporate Active Directory.

(more…)

Title: Webcast: Security in the Cloud: Protecting Confidential Data in Cloud Computing Environments
Location: online
Link out: Click here
Description: Cloud computing is opening up opportunities for cost savings and increased scalability of IT infrastructure. However, security concerns can sometimes obscure these benefits. In this webcast, you will hear from the CIO of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on a joint project using VMware and Third Brigade solutions to provide a secure, robust and cost-effective electronic health records (EHR) infrastructure in a private cloud environment supporting 200-300 independent physicians. Learn how protecting confidential data and ensuring security compliance of cloud resources can enable even greater flexibility for cloud deployments.
Start Time: 20:00
Date: 2009-03-24
End Time: 21:00

Title: Webcast: Deploying Oracle on VMware: Challenges and Opportunities
Location: online
Link out: Click here
Description: Many IT organizations are standardizing on VMware as the default platform for all their applications. However, virtualizing Oracle solutions – including databases, RAC, WebLogic and enterprise apps – can pose unique challenges.

In this webcast, VMware will discuss when and how to virtualize Oracle solutions and provide guidance on how to convince application owners that their Oracle deployments will run better on a VMware platform.
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-03-24
End Time: 19:00

I get more and more the question does vendor x with application y support their software running in a VMware environment.

There are several questions to ask:

1. Can the application be virtualized? or in other words does the application run without problems in a VMware environment?
2. Does the vendor support running in a VMware environment?
3. Does the vendor give full and/or unconditional  support when running the application virtual?

(more…)

Last Saturday I read an article in a well known magazine in The Netherlands. The article talked about that people in the IT/ICT branche lack good communication skills. I often wonder when reading articles: Who’s the author? Is he or she biased in any way?

The same was true for this article. I quickly found out (the names of their businesses were in the article ) that the people interviewed worked for companies that gave “soft skill” courses. Don’t get me wrong. I totally agree that employees benefit from some form of interrelational training, especially when you work with people (don’t we all?).

(more…)

After a frustrating weekend, today I was scouting the Internet for virtualization news and I ran into a very interesting post by Jason Boche.

This morning VMware released their Cost-Per-Application-Calculator. With this calculator you can accurately estimate and compare acquisition cost of a virtualization solution, by VMware labeled as Cost Per Application. This is a great tool which will come in handy in current discussions regarding ‘free’ hypervisors.

If you want to know more about this VMware Cost-Per-Application-Calculator visit Jason’s blog and read the original article.

Based on some numbers from my current client case here are some results from the calculator.

(more…)

In the last week these items are added or edited in VMware’s Knowledgebase at http://kb.vmware.com

(more…)

Most of the time when I’m frustrated it helps to play some squash, ride my bike or vent my frustration on this blog. As all walls in the area have been smashed to bits due to frustrations in the past and it is too cold to ride my bike, I will try the last one.

Yesterday I attended a seminar from work together with Edwin, Anne Jan and Alex. The subject was virtualization with Citrix and we were invited to keep a good balance between Citrix and VMware but we could not give a presentation due to time constraints. The people who organized this event know us pretty well and know (and share) our love for VMware so we were asked not to mess up the presentation and bash the Citrix guy. And so we did………

(more…)

As every morning I was browsing on the internet and read an amazing article about controlling your virtual infrastructure by logging into vCenter mobile access from your mobile device. I think almost everyone knows the situation in which you are occupied in a personal situation and all of a sudden you receive a call from work. Something is going wrong with your IT infrastructure and they need you to fix it. During the years a lot of remote access programs where made for IT administrators which can help you in a similar situation.

For these situations VMware is working on a program for remote access. The “VMware vCenter Mobile Access” or “vCMA” software makes it possible for an IT administrator to access your ESX infrastructure for remote management.

(more…)

Today we had a very interesting presentation from Citrix. At one point the discussion was about the Citrix’s definition of High Availability.

I really can imagine that this is getting a confusing discussion. VMware says: HA is to resolve a single host failure. Citrix however also calls live migration a form of HA.

I can’t argue with that but to keep the discussions and comparisons clear it is essential to specify what you define as HA. I think both are right, but the trouble is that, when comparing products, people think they have a solution for hardware failure, but instead they can do a live migration.

I hopefully that in the future both parties start using the same names for the same options, or at least explain what their option is.

I hope you all enjoyed the webcast from yesterday about the next version of vCenter Server.

For those who never saw a VMware webcast: It’s a fun and easy way to further your knowledge about VMware and their range of products. Most of the webcasts are live in nature, but if you missed a webcast chances are that you can view it later at http://www.vmware.com/a/webcasts/recorded/

So: Enlighten yourself and view some of the great webcasts @ VMware.com

You probably noticed the last couple of weeks that everybody is talking about the next generation of virtualisation software from VMware.

In about an hour VMware is going to do a live webcast about vCenter Server.
(more…)

Yesterday Cisco revealed more details about their Unified Computing System. The term was announced some time ago but nobody really knew what Cisco was planning. Some people even thought that Cisco was about to take over VMware as we already talked about in this article. Luckily this is not the case and even the opposite is true.

Cisco and VMware join forces in Cisco’s Unified Computing System which will incorporate product engineering and integrated sales and support strategies for datacenter virtualization and unified computing. The resulting combination of the Cisco Unified Computing System with VMware’s virtualization platform will provide customers with access to a unique and powerful virtualized and physical computing system over an intelligent, unified network fabric.

(more…)

In the last week these items are added or edited in VMware’s Knowledgebase at http://kb.vmware.com

(more…)

The day before last I had to configure a VMware View proof of concept. For this we used HP hardware and a couple of thin clients from Wyse.

People always tell me that thin clients don’t need support, no management needed, nothing can go wrong. Well.. Don’t let me touch those things then. If I touch them they go boom.

The clients were preconfigured and autologon was enabled. Since we both didn’t know how to get out of the loop (or saw the logout option ) we thought: Well, let’s keep the shift button pressed during boot. On old clients this sometimes worked. The result is visible in the picture.. Scary.