VM /ETC

WOW! 3 full VIRTUMANIA podcasts are now available from iTunes!

Special guest Scott Lowe joins us in this latest episode to discuss high availability options for virtual machines. Marc Farley co hosts the show and Sean Clark returns again as the guest host. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 3 - High Availability For Virtual Machines. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of3Par and StorageRap.com with guests Sean Clark (@vseanclark) ofwww.seanclark.us and Scott Lowe(@scott_lowe) of blog.scottlowe.org of EMC. Our discussion this week focuses on high availability (HA) options for applications running on virtual machines. Talk includes application clustering decisions as well as hypervisor features and third party solutions that enable HA. We also look to the future with Cisco OTV and Long Distance Vmotion. Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) of Chi Corporation for this Infosmack Production.

Listen to episode 3 with the embedded player below or use the badges underneath  to always get Virtumania epsiodes immediately when published.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to our past episodes as well as all the episodes of Infosmack.

The following short list of links offer more information on a couple of the topics mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 3 that I found extra interesting:

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Almost as if to segue from my recent Virtumania Podcast episode about type 2 hypervisors, VMware has announced the release of the public betas for the latest versions of their popular Workstation and Player desktop products. Touting several new features and performance improvements, VMware Workstation 7.1 and Player 3.1 betas can now be downloaded from their VMware Beta Community pages.

I am downloading my copy as I write this post, but several new features have caught my attention.

• Open GL 2.1 support for Windows 7 and Vista guests
• Improved graphics support enabling high resolution videos in VMs
• Autologin for Windows Guests
• Inclusion of the OVF 1.0 command line tool to convert VMs to .OVF files for exporting to other hypervisors
• 8 way vCPU support in VMs
• up to 2TB virtual disks
• Direct Launch – drag icon to host desktop and seamlessly start an application inside a VM – even after closing VMware Workstation or Player.
• Support for Fedora 12 as a guest OS
• VMware Ace upgraded to version 3.7

Also, I can’t help but notice Known Issues from the Release Notes such as the following:

“Display

• Exiting FIFA 08 game on Windows 7 guests and hosts with Aero enabled, might cause the desktop wallpaper to turn black.
• There are known issues with the ATI Linux driver 10.2. VMware recommends that you use ATI Linux driver 9.11 for the best 3D user experience.”

Looks like I’ve got some new testing to do! (and maybe a new 3D games video to make!)

Copying more information from the Release Notes:

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The VIRTUMANIA continues with Episode 2! Rick Vanover joins Marc and I again along with very special guest Jason Boche, the Virtualization Evangelist, for a recorded discussion about DR options in virtualized environments. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 2 – Virtulization Makes DR Easy. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com with guests and Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com and Jason Boche (@jasonboche) of Boche.net/blog. This week’s episode includes discussion about how virtualization has changed disaster recovery and site failover, explores various virtual machine backup and replication products, compares storage mirroring to purely physical solutions in the past, and thinks about DR technologies in the future. Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) of Chi Corporation for this Infosmack Production.

Before, between, and after the important stuff we also have some fun with Virtumania Bucks, the ongoing danger of nipples in the data center (yes, we go there again!), and a new nickname for Greg Knieriemen.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the VM Backup and DR products mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 2:

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The vSphere Enterprise Plus vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) has been heralded as, and I might add lives up to it’s reputation of, an administrator’s time saver and single point of virtual networking configuration and visibility across many ESX/ESXi 4 hosts. However, the vDS presents some administrative challenges unique from the traditional vNetwork Standard Switch (vSS) that admins are used to. Specifically, since the vCenter 4 Server actually maintains the vDS configuration, some extra design thinking needs to be built into a vSphere 4 environment where a vDS will be used. If vCenter 4 Server itself will be a virtual machine in the environment with a vDS, the design gets even more involved.

There are a few possible problems to consider. In this post I’ll first cover (with the help of a several others) general VM and vCenter vDS networking issues, but along the way I’ll explore thoughts about designing around a vDS for keeping vCenter as a VM.

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Managing and troubleshooting ESXi 4 can be a little alien when an administrator is used to the Service Console of ESX Classic. Specifically, troubleshooting remote connectivity to the ESX management interface after adding a second NIC involves local esxcfg-vswitch commands on ESX, but with ESXi the esxcfg commands are only available via the RCLI. Problem is you can’t use the RCLI if you lost remote management connectivity! Luckily, the local ESXi GUI lets you reconfigure your mistake and re establish remote connections.

Hit F2 on the ESXi Console and enter the System Configuration Menu

  Choose to Configure Management Network > Network Adapters

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http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010718 explains the normal way for disabling and removing a VMware ESX/ESXi vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS or DVS or VDS – LOL), but when I recently tried to do so I received the following error:

“The resource ‘1′ is in use. DVS [vDS Name] port 1 is reserved by to entity <not-found.> vnic 4000, type:vmVnic”

The screen shot shows the actual error I received.

After thinking about that message, I decided to check to see if any ports were in fact being used on the vDS. Although PortID 1 dvPortGroups did not show it being used as expected, other PortIDs were, in fact, in use. See image below.

I tried messing around with disabling the ports (blocking was the terminology in the vSphere Client, I believe) but I still could not delete the vDS. It was Saturday and I had family stuff to do so I reluctantly gave up at the time. However, 3 days later I was able to easily remove it via the Remove link on vDS Configuration screen just like I was supposed to be able to do all along. Needless to say I was a bit perplexed.

After researching I discovered that

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I am proud to announce a new podcast I will be hosting on a weekly basis – VIRTUMANIA!

VIRTUMANIA is an Infosmack Production that will try to focus on the operational and administrative viewpoints of all things virtualization, so expect a different guest list of bloggers, architects, administrators, and consultants with each recording.

VIRTUMANIA episodes will be announced as new posts here on VM /ETC. Be sure to subscribe to the VM /ETC RSS feed in your favorite RSS reader or download the show each week from the podcast’s RSS feed. Of course, you can subscribe to the VIRTUMANIA podcast on iTunes. Finally, download or listen to each episode from the embedded player on the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the first episode of VIRTUMANIA!

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 1 – Virtualbox, Type 2 Hypervisors, and Security Nipples.

Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com with guests Sean Clark (@vseanclark) of SeanClark.us and Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com. This week’s episode includes discussion about Sun Virtulabox, Teleportation, comparing all type 2 hypervisors, and Oracle’s master virtualization plan. Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) of Chi Corporation for this Infosmack Production.

Listen Now:

Download

I can’t thank Greg Knieriemen and Marc Farley enough for the patience, advice, and support necessary to get this podcast off the ground. For those that don’t already know, Greg and Marc host the already widely popular Infosmack podcast covering servers, storage, and virtualization news. Tapping into their insights and experiences while planning this podcast have been, and will continue to be invaluable to me. Special thanks to Marc for the Virtumania theme music and Greg for recording and post editing each episode.