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Managing ESX in a COS-less World #TA2659

September 17th, 2008 |

Author: Rich Brambley

This post is a summary of notes from the 1:30 pm VMworld 2008 session titled Managing ESX in a COS-less World. The discussion was about various options for managing ESXi without the Service Console OS (COS). The session was hosted by members of the ESXi team and contained forward looking statements about possible future directions. As always, the disclaimer was discussed with the audience before the presentation began. (Do I need to keep explaining this? Probably the safe thing to do.)

Scott Lowe apparently was in the same session so check his
TA2659: Managing ESX in a COS-less World post for a lot of additional information besides what I have recorded here. Scott, my 3 finger “peck typing” doesn’t compare to your keyboard skills!

One of the first things mentioned was that the next major release of ESX/ESXi would be the last release of the two products together. I guess this means that ESXi kernel development will be independent of the ESX versions that provide the VDC-OS. We were told ESXi will continue without the COS and that ESX would include a stripped down COS.

There are several reasons VMware needed to remove the COS from ESX.

The COS needs to be patched frequently
Management is restricted to one host at a time
The COS has a large memory footprint
There are numerous possible isolation and security concerns when not configured properly

The presenter then stated (in my own words) VMware encourages customers not to rely on the COS going forward. It is going away. He was speaking specifically about the current version of ESX 3.5 (not just ESXi).

So, what are the management options available without the COS?

Use the VI Client
Use VirtualCenter
There are numerous management products that have announced they support ESXi
- EMC
- IBM
- HP
VI Command Line Interface or Remote Command Line Interface (VI CLI or RCLI)
- Uses the same command syntax as esxcfg – “esxcfg-nics –l ” is “vicfg-nics –l”
- Built on top of the VI API
- Most commands also work against VirtualCenter
- Future Directions
  - All current COS abilities will be available
  - Elimination of need to access the host directly
  - Improved error handling – no more cryptic messages!
VI Toolkit (Windows)
- Powershell scripts for Windows only
- There are already 120 cmdlets for most VI management needs
- Cmdlets can be piped into a chain for more complex tasks
- Large, active user community developing and supporting scripts
- Future Directions
  - Next release includes 50 cmdlets
  - As all new features are released in the VDC-OS technologies a Powershell interface will be developed
VI Perl Toolkit
- Works for both Linux and Windows
- Pre-packaged utilities have been created by VMware and supported by VMware Support
- Future Directions
  - Enhance to be similar to the cmdlets

What are the options for monitoring COS-less servers?

Server Health Monitoring provided by CIM – industry standard adopted by VMware
VirtualCenter will aggregate all health information from all hosts and display in the GUI

VMware has a vision for Centralizing and Automation of Configuration of ESXi

Provide template based configuration from a reference ESXi host – same Host Profiles feature of the VDC-OS
Available as a feature of VirtualCenter
Used to deploy new hosts
Used to check host compliance

Suggestions for deploying current ESX third party agents without the COS

Where applicable deploy the applications on physical servers
Where applicable deploy the applications inside virtual machines
VMware partners can create virtual appliances for their applications
Use a shared virtual appliance for deploying vendor agents
- VI Management Assistant (VIMA)
  - Designed to host multiple vendor agents
  - Virtual appliance packaged as OVF
    - Linux OS
    - VI Perkit
    - JRE
    - VI CLI
  - VMware to provide method to update and patch the VIMA
  - Ability to manage one or more ESX hosts via VirtualCenter

Finally, the current APC Powerchute agent for ESX was used as an example in development for the VIMA implementation.

Currently the APC PCNS agent runs in the ESX COS and shuts down the host when power is lost to the UPS
APC is rewriting the agent to use the VI API to instead put the ESX host in maintenance mode and therefore cause Vmotion evacuations of the guests before shutting down completely.

VM /ETC

Managing ESX in a COS-less World #TA2659

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