I stumbled across another interesting Perl script. Paul Gregg - Projects - VMware ESX vmclone.p is a web page that explains the vmclone.pl script which automates cloning a virtual machine. Not a big deal if you have Virtual Center, but for those environments where you have stand alone ESX hosts this script can make life a little easier.
From the web page and the notes of the script:
Sure, you can run Virtual Center Management Server as a Virtual Machine. VMware supports it and has published a technical note about doing it - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_vc_in_vm.pdf. A lot of companies have built their VC2 server this way, but is it really wise to have “the manager” of the environment running in the environment it is managing?
Think about it. Virtual Center provides VMotion which in turn enables DRS and HA. Agents running on each ESX host are communicating back to VirtualCenter for these features to work. A lot could go wrong with some pretty severe consequences. This is even worse if a company has completely virtualized their network services such as DNS. I’ve personally seen where a client “shot themselves in the foot” because Virtual Center and all networking services where provided by VMs.
In my opinion the VMware tech note is a not exactly a “glowing endorsement” for installing VC2 in a VM. It is best practices guide that explains critical design criteria.
First, why would you put VC2 in a VM? The tech note begins by offering some good reasons:
Even though VI 3.5 is now generally available you may not be ready to upgrade from version 3 just yet. You should, however, make sure all patches and updates are applied to your VI3 infrastructure. This post explains the upgrading and patching methods I have standardized on and provides some tips for avoiding common issues like HA agent configuration and auto applying numerous ESX patches. All scripts and files referenced are linked at the bottom of this post.
Preparing for the upgrade and patching is critical to minimizing what can go wrong.
TechRepublic.com ’s “How Do I ?” series of blogs has a couple of great posts about Installing Winodws Server 2008 Core and running Virtual Server 2005. These posts have easy to follow instructions and plenty of screen shots. They are great if you are like me and have limited lab resources and even less time to use that limited lab!
You can see all the Server 2008 related posts here. Otherwise check out:
Microsoft’s announcement this past Thursday of the availability of the Hyper-V Beta has definitely generated some “buzz”. Market analysts continue to speculate on how Hyper-V will ultimately challenge for data center dominance. Most reports reason that because Microsoft Server is the prevalent OS is data centers today the adoption of Server 2008 and Hyper-V will likely be fast and furious over the next few years. As always, the technical details and logistics of implementation need to be better understood.
Microsoft’s How to install and enable the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Beta in Windows Server 2008 RC 1 page details what is needed to implement the solution and what features are currently available (MS still has a ways to go in my opinion!). The following sections summarize the process and contain cut and pastes from Microsoft’s page.
Looking for a free study guide for the VCP certification? Try Rob Scmidt’s VMware VCP Study Questions - Petri.co.il forums by Daniel Petri.
The original study guide was posted in May 2006. According to the forum thread at the link above, several corrections were made since then. The latest version of the guide available for download here is as of July 2007. The screenshot in this post shows a sample question and answer.
Server-based License File Checker is an online VMware tool that let’s you check your centralized ESX license file(s). This tool is most helpful when you have downloaded multiple .lic files and need to manually combine them into one file. This usually is the case when several different employees have purchased VMware licenses and each person’s VMware log on is attached to separate orders. When this happens you can not access all of your company’s licenses to combine them from the licensing portal.
As described on the tool’s web page:
With the new release of VI3.5 yesterday VMware is offering special pricing in the form of Acceleration kits designed for small and medium sized businesses. The kits consist of licensing for multiple ESX hosts packaged to get you started with virtual infrastructure. The acceleration kits offer discounted pricing when comparing the cost of buying single ESX licenses which are sold in 2 processor increments.
The following are descriptions of the kits from a VMware marketing email I received:
Keeping consistent date and time between your ESX hosts is critical. You can set up NTP sync manually by following the instructions from VMware, or you can run a script to configure ESX automatically.
I first found out about the setup_ntp.sh script from VMware Support. I have since discovered VMColonel » Script to setup NTP on ESX 3.x. I’m guessing this is where the script originated from? Regardless, this script has been a tremendous time saver.
Here’s a high level overview of how to use the script:
Got the email this morning. Here’s a cut and paste:
ESX Server 3.5 /VirtualCenter 2.5 are now generally available!
Bring even greater levels of manageability, availability and performance to your datacenter with ESX Server 3.5/VirtualCenter 2.5The new release of VMware Infrastructure 3, which includes the new VMware ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5, will allow VMware customers to streamline the management of IT environments through greater levels of automation, increase overall infrastructure availability and boost performance for mission critical workloads. Review the new features such as VMware Storage VMotion and VMware Update Manager at http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/whatsnew.html.
This new release is accompanied by updated pricing & packaging. Review our new pricing and packaging at http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/buy.html and our new pricing and packaging whitepaper at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi_pricing.pdf to understand the new VMware Infrastructure 3 editions. The updated price list went into effect November 30.
VMware Infrastructure 3 customers with active subscription contracts can now download the new products at http://www.vmware.com/download/. Current Standard and Starter customers with subscription contracts will also receive separate instructions on managing new license entitlements available through with release.
IT20.info has created a good multi vendor virtual infrastructure feature comparison which can be found at Virtual Infrastructure products: features comparison.
What distinguishes this table from Wikipedia’s comparison is that it is focused only on hardware virtualization solutions that are the most relevant in the market today. The author has done a great job weeding out all the less known vendors and allows you to more easily compare VMware vs Microsoft vs Virtual Iron vs Citrix vs Xen.
John Troyer from VMTN Blog wrote about this matrix in his Virtual Technology Comparison post and brings up a great point:
Looking for a comparison of VM backup solutions? PHD Technologies, makers of esXpress, have put together a matrix of features comparing how their product stacks up to VMware’s VCB, Vizioncore’s vRanger, and even vRanger integrated with VCB.
Check it out online in original form here.
I have saved the matrix as a stand alone page as well.
updated 12-11-07 *****
After reading comments from readers I realized
