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Installing Equallogic HIT 3.1 for vSphere 5

23 September 2011
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As I’ve written in a previous post, Dell has recently released the new versions of some Equallogic’s software, included the new Host Integration Tools (HIT) for VMware 3.1 that is now compatible with vSphere 5 (it support also the Storage Clusters and VASA). The appliance and the documentation are available from the Equallogic support site.

HIT/VE is distributed as a OVA file (the current version is HITVE-3.1.1.32.ova) and the deploy is the same as other virtual appliance. The VM it’s based on a CentOS 5.3 distro and it’s configured with virtual hardware 7 (so it can run also on 4.x hosts), 1 vCPU, 2 GB vRAM (but seems that also 1,5 GB could be enough) and two vNIC: one for reach the vCenter Server and one for reach the Equallogic management (or the iSCSI network).

When the appliance is deployed and powered on, with the vSphere Console or SSH it is possible to login with root/eql (password can be change) to run the setup program and start the configuration (that is quite simple):

Note that View and VASA configurations are optional. After the plugins are registered in vCenter Server the VM will be rebooted. To update a previous version of the HIT/VE appliance an ISO file is available… but of course it’s also possible delete the old VM and deploy the new one (to de-register the old one you can also use the setup menu of the new appliance).

When the appliance is configured and the plugins are registered, you can see some new icons in the home page of vSphere Client (see the next figure), but also some new menus and tabs.

The Datastore and Auto-Snapshot Managers are just the Equallogic volumes and snapshots (smart copies) manager, and are very similar as the same in the native storage manager interface. The Virtual Desktop Deployment plugin is just a way in integrate some function of the View Manager (like pool creation and management).

Also some new alarms (specif for the storage) are created in vCenter Server. In this way the vCenter Server become a unified interface to manage also the storage part (to be honest some function, like firmware upgrade, still require the storage management interface).

About VASA, in my case, it was quite strange: it doesn’t register correctly in vCenter Server. Of course a vCenter Server 5 was used, but the VASA provider was not added to it (note that the VASA API are not provided directly by Equallogic, but by the HIT, at his address https://HIT_IP/vasa/services/vasaService). The error was related to this issue: “cannot connect to profile-driven storage service”.

Some root causes and solutions were available in the release note (apply if there is a conflict with the Web Client Server or Orchestrator) or in the KB2001804 (apply if the profile-driver storage service was not registered due an early reboot of vCenter Server). But neither of them was a solution of my case: the true was really funny… simple the Inventory and the Service Profile-Driven Storage were not installed (probably an issue during the vCenter Server installation). For fix them was needed a new run of the vCenter installation.

When the VASA provider is registered (see the first picture for the status), is possible build new storage profiles based on some capabilities automatically collected from the storage. Note  that those information are available also with firmware 5.0.8. I’ve not test yet if the capability list is more reach and detailed with the new 5.1.x firmware.

 

DellTechnologies, vProducts, vStorage ,

Installing Dell OMSA 6.5 on ESXi 5 using VUM

22 September 2011
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With ESX/ESXi is possible have several information from the physical hardware (with CIM) and this could be enough in most cases, especially for monitoring (with hardware health) and to gain some inventory info (like the Service Tag of a server).

But for some specific tasks (like a RAID rebuild o check of the local storage, or have a detailed inventory of the physical RAM banks) is necessary use the specific native tool from the hardware vendor. For Dell servers, the tool is called OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA) and the current version is 6.5. It is available for several platforms of operating systems (in case of physical servers) or hypervisors (included VMware ESX/ESXi, XenServer and Hyper-V).

For vSphere 5 it’s already available a preliminar and working version (but is not yet included in the official repository):

continue reading…

DellTechnologies, VMware , , ,

VCP5 Exam Prep – Part 6.2

21 September 2011
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For a list of all objectives see the VCP5 page.

Objective 6.2 – Perform Basic vSphere Network Troubleshooting

Verify network configuration (same as vSphere 4.x)

See VMware Virtual Networking Concepts for basic concepts for standard virtual switches. See Objective 2.2 – Configure vNetwork Distributed Switches for distributed virtual switches.

Verify a given virtual machine is configured with the correct network resources (same as vSphere 4.x)

See VMware KB: Troubleshooting virtual machine network connection issues and http://damiankarlson.com/vcap-dca4-exam/objective-6-3-troubleshoot-network-performance-and-connectivity/

Troubleshoot virtual switch and port group configuration issues (same as vSphere 4.x)

Use previous links. For vmkernel porgroup vmkping can help in network tests (remember to use -d option to test large packets like, for example, Jumbo Frames).

Troubleshoot physical network adapter configuration issues (same as vSphere 4.x)

Remember that each pNIC act as an uplink, so the relative pSwitch port must be configured in the same of others in the same vSwitch. Mix of different NIC adapters is permitted. Mix of different speed could be possible, but can create performance issues. For IP hash team policy a specific configuration is required on the pSwitch. Beacon probing make sense only with at least 3 pNIC.

Identify the root cause of a network issue based on troubleshooting information (similar as vSphere 4.x)

A top-down or bottom-up approach though the network layer could be useful. Also a packet trace in the network could help (see Using a Network Packet Analyzer on a VMware vSphere Virtual Network and VMware KB: Capturing a network trace in ESXi using Tech Support).

vCertification, VMware, vNetworking ,

VCP5 Exam Prep – Part 6.1

20 September 2011
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For a list of all objectives see the VCP5 page.

Objective 6.1 – Perform Basic Troubleshooting for ESXi Hosts

Identify general ESXi host troubleshooting guidelines (new in vSphere 5)

See the vSphere Troubleshooting guide.

Troubleshoot common installation issues (new in vSphere 5)

For Audodeply see the vSphere Troubleshooting guide (page 20). For other installation is most similar to old version and remember to check requiments and HCL.

Monitor ESXi system health (similar as vSphere 4.x)

See the vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide (page 25).

Export diagnostic information (new in vSphere 5)

See the vCenter Server and Host Management Guide (page 95).

vCertification, VMware ,

VCP5 Exam Prep – Part 5.6

19 September 2011
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For a list of all objectives see the VCP5 page.

Objective 5.6 – Patch and Update ESXi and Virtual Machines

See also: Objective 5.6 – Patch and Update ESXi and Virtual Machines.

Identify patching requirements for ESXi hosts and virtual machine hardware/tools (similar as vSphere 4.x)

Each piece of software need to be patched for different reasons… but the most important are usually the security reasons.

For ESXi a patch need that the host is put in maintenance mode and require a host reboot after the patch operation. All those operations can be orchestrated by VUM.

For VMware Tools a new version is usually related to a new major release or also of some update (in most cases related to vmkernel update). On most guest OS (like Windows) a VMware Tools patch need a VM reboot. All those operations can be orchestrated by VUM.

For VM virtual hardware this upgrade is related to new major relases (for example with vSphere 5 the new virtual hardware is v8 ) e richiede di fatto due riavvi della VM. It require first the VMware Tools upgrade, and usually two VM downtime. All those operations can be orchestrated by VUM.

Create/Edit/Remove a Host Profile from an ESXi host (same as vSphere 4.x)

See the vSphere Host Profiles Guide (page 8). Usually you can start from a base ESXi and use it as a template.

Attach/Apply a Host Profile to an ESXi host or cluster (same as vSphere 4.x)

See the vSphere Host Profiles Guide (page 12).

Perform compliance scanning and remediation of an ESXi host using Host Profiles (same as vSphere 4.x)

See the vSphere Host Profiles Guide (page 16).

Install and Configure vCenter Update Manager (similar as vSphere 4.x)

See the Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager guide (page 31). Note that you can install or upgrade the Update Manager server on 64-bit operating systems. Even though Update Manager runs on 64-bit operating systems, it is a 32-bit application and requires a 32-bit ODBC DSN.

Configure patch download options (same as vSphere 4.x)

See the Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager guide (page 66).

Create/Edit/Delete an Update Manager baseline (same as vSphere 4.x)

See the Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager guide (page 81).

Attach an Update Manager baseline to an ESXi host or cluster (same as vSphere 4.x)

See the Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager guide (page 95).

Scan and remediate ESXi hosts and virtual machine hardware/tools using Update Manager (same as vSphere 4.x)

See the Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager guide (page 99 and 115). Note that Update Manager 5.0 does not support virtual machine guest patch operations.

Stage ESXi host updates (same as vSphere 4.x)

See the Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager guide (page 119).

vCertification, VMware , ,

Windows 8 – first news and first look

16 September 2011
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At the BUILD developer conference during this week, Microsoft demonstrated the new version of Windows products (and some related products, like Hyper-V and PowerShell). It is not clear if both the client and the server OS will be released at the same time (rumors say during 2012) and if they have also the same name. But I suppose that the Server OS will use the same naming of previous (so maybe Windows Server 2012?).

Windows (client) 8

One curios thing is that Windows 7 and 8 are not related to their NT kernel versions: Windows 7 is just a NT 6.1 and Windows 8 is just a NT 6.2… so not new architectures but more similar to an evolution of the NT 6.0 (Vista) architecture. In fact, except the new Metro UI (and the MSIE 10), Windows 8 seems quite similar to Windows 7.

The Metro UI is the new controversial interface tile based, similar to the one used on Windows Phone 7. For a tablet could probably be good a solution, but for a traditional PC with keyboard and mouse is just a nice home screen with a limited usability. About the revolution (or evolution) of this GUI, this image synthesize is a funny way the difference between Windows 1.0 and Windows 8.

From: http://charlie.amigaspirit.hu/temp/windows-1-vs-8.jpeg

Windows 8 is available as a developer preview on MSDN both in 32 and 64 bit editions (so seems confirmed that the rumored 128 bit was a fake). A VM installation require VMware Workstation 8 or Fusion 4, or (maybe?) vSphere 5 (with this note, but http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2006859 say a different thing) or XenServer 5.6U2 (Running Windows 8 Developer Preview in a virtual environment). Honestly in a VM isn’t too much fast in the boot and shutdown procedure (but this a developer edition). But from the OS works good and seems quite ready. See also some screenshots (not mine). See also the new bluescreen screenshot (Even the Windows 8 Blue Screens have been re-imagined!), this happen if you try to install Windows 8 in a VM on a unsupported hypervisor.

Windows Server 8

Also Windows Server 8 is available as a developer preview on MSDN. With 300 new features that include significant improvements to system-level virtualization, along with a raft of virtualized networking, storage and management capabilities. Apart the Hyper-V 3 related features, one interesting aspect could be the deduplications in NTFS as also the ability to turn on and off the GUI, basically providing Server Core, with a GUI on demand when needed (but will replace the Server Core?).

Hyper-V 3

Probably this is the area with most new features. First to all seems that will available also for the Client OS (Bringing Hyper-V to “Windows 8”). This will open some interesting questions about the role of Windows Virtual PC (is suppose that it will dropped) and how XP-Mode and MED-V will be implemented now.

This is a list of some of the new features of Hyper-V 3:

  • Support for up to 160 logical processors and up to 2TB RAM on Hyper-V hosts
  • Support for 32 vCPUs with up to 512 GB RAM per VM
    note that the CPU count matches what’s available with vSphere 5 and XenServer 6.0, though both of those platforms also accommodate 1 TB of virtual memory
  • Support for NUMA in the guest, so that the VM has processor and memory affinity with the host
    similar at the same function of ESXi 5
  • Support for multiple concurrent Live Migrations
  • Support for Storage Live Migration,without a requirement for a shared storage backend
    with SCVMM there was already a Quick Storage Migration function, but this one is more similar to the Storage vMotion of VMware (included since 3.5)
  • New virtual disk format, called VHDX breaking the 2TB limit for the currently used VHD format, with a maximum of 16 TB
    note that also vSphere 5 has a limit (in the vmdk) of 2TB
  • Introduction of Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX), which enables Hyper-V to offload storage features to the storage subsystem
    comparable with the vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) functionality provided by VMware
  • Virtual Fibre Channel Support, where each VM can have up to 4 virtual Fibre Channel host adapters, and direct access to SAN LUNs using Multi-Path I/O (MPIO)
  • Updated virtual switch, providing multi-tenancy capabilities providing network isolation and network virtualization
    comparable to the VXLAN functionality introduced by VMware/Cisco and others
  • The virtual switch is also extensible providing capture, filter and forwarding extensions, using an API provided by Microsoft
  • SR-IOW for privileged access to PCI devices
  • Resource pools
  • Support for Data de-duplication, providing compression of data stored on a Volume, with no significant performance implications. This also will reduce backup windows dramatically
  • Hyper-V replica providing asynchronous/consistent replication functionality
    probably similar to the new VM replication feature introduced in vSphere 5

Interesting also the announce of Cisco, that will extent the functionally of the Hyper-V virtual networking:

Microsoft, vProducts ,

Backup Academy: Free data protection training & certification for virtualization

14 September 2011
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Veeam has start a free community educational resource site:  Backup Academy. This site provides training on basic principles of virtualization and data protection. These basic principles are presented in a product-neutral fashion, meaning that there are no specific backup products mentioned. The only time specific products are mentioned is when the hypervisors (VMware ESXi, Hyper-V) are mentioned, as well as specific guest operating systems and applications that we need to protect as IT professionals.

See the official announce: Backup Academy: Free data protection training & certification for virtualization.

I’ve not tried yet the course part (that seems to be good, at least for the people involved), but I’ve only try the exam part. To be honest the exam is actually too much simple (some questions are really good, but most are too easy or also repeated). Also the certificate is avalable only on a web page, and is qualified only by the exam date but without any ID. IMHO, the certification part need some improvement, or just change the name from certification to accreditation :)

vCertification, Veeam , ,
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