VM /ETC

Archive for September, 2010

Figuring out whether you can replicate your VMs across your WAN to a DR site is never easy. There are many factors to consider, but luckily, one of my Veeam peers and a fellow VMware vExpert, Ricky El -Qasem has created a Replication Calculator to help figure it out.

From the post on the Virtualize Planet Blog: Replication Bandwidth Calculator | Virtualize Planet

ReplicaCalc

How many times do you get asked “how do I work out if VM Replication will work with my internet link” Well I wanted to demonstrate some way of providing a calculator without working it out in my head every time. So I made a Replication Calculation tool.  It is assumed that you provide it with 3 values:

1. Average Rate of Change.
2. The Link speed – this value should reflect the upload speed at the source site or the download speed at the target if this is less. So for example if the upload at the source is 6Mbs and 10Mbs download at the target then go for 6Mbs
3. Bandwidth % – which is the amount of bandwidth as % which achievable from the link speed specified.

Download and install ReplicaCalc from here > ReplicaCalc

Ricky describes the needed values in more detail in his post so be sure to read it all there. He also demonstrates how to use Veeam Backup and Replication to get the VM dynamic rate of change. The tool is useful whether using Veeam to replicate your VMs or not, however.

Thanks Ricky!

For more on this topic, I’ve blogged about using a bandwidth calculator to figure out whether your current WAN link is adequate or not for your replication jobs before.

Your vSphere VMs may be running from snapshots even though you didn’t create them. That is, if a scheduled job which auto creates snapshots runs into a datastore with insufficient free space. In this scenario a special Consolidate Helper snapshot will be created. 

The following screenshot shows the mysterious snapshot as I found it on my lab domain controller

In my case, the scheduled job that needs to create and then normally commit the snapshot is a Veeam Backup and Replication job. At some point in the life of my lab I did run out of space, and although it’s not an issue anymore, the snapshot still exists even when the jobs aren’t running! I was a bit surprised that backup jobs could even complete with this snapshot in place.

VMware KB article 1003302 explains that the Consolidate Helper snapshot is actually created when trying to commit (delete all) a snapshot.

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I happened to find the Paragon Go Virtual free P2V migration tool when trying to find a disk image back up tool for my notebook. This free tool is designed for desktops only and only works with the following OSes:

• Windows 7 (32/64-bit)
• Windows Vista (32/64-bit)
• Windows XP (32/64-bit)
• Windows 2000 Professional

Here are some self described key features per the web site:

“Full Windows OS Support - Guaranteed support for any Windows operating system since Win2K (excluding server editions).

P2V Migration - Migrate a physical system to a virtual environment by converting all installed software and data into a virtual disk of the required virtual machine.

Migration without rebooting Windows - Hot processing of locked (in-use) hard disks lets you migrate a computer without rebooting and interrupting Windows.

P2V Adjust OS to recover the startup ability after unsuccessful virtualization with a 3rd party tool and to make Windows Vista/7 backups bootable on virtual hardware.

Smart Driver Injector - Makes the process of adding new drivers smooth and easy.

Performance – Paragon Go Virtual performs approximately 20% faster (your results may vary).

P2V adjust OS – Freeware tools will not adjust the OS to virtual hardware, leaving the user unable to boot their virtual machine. Go Virtual adjusts the OS so the virtual machine will boot successfully.

Selection of virtual hardware – Go Virtual offers the user a selection of virtual hardware types. Freeware tools typically do not.

Migration of offline systems - Freeware tools support the migration of operating systems currently running, but they have problems migrating offline operating systems, especially when there are more than one OS on the disk. Go Virtual performs these operations with ease.”

Also per the Paragon web site:

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VIRTUMANIA Episode 25 … finally! We put the headsets back on and recorded another episode. Sorry for the delay! The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 25 – Better Late Than Never VMWorld 2010 Autopsy.  Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of  StorageRap.com with co host Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com are joined by special guests Jon Owings (@2vcps) of 2vcps.com and Kelly Culwell (@kculw) of VirtualInsanity.com. Unconfirmed reports describe chalk outlines on the Moscone Center floor from the bodies of exhausted vendors and attendees. Enjoy our autoposy of VMWorld 2010 from the experiences of this week’s Virtumaniacs. Get an inside perspective on the sessions, the announcements, the parties, the people, and everything else. Virtumania is an Infosmack Production.

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.

Earlier this week VMETC.com fell victim to a WordPress hack that redirected readers to a malware infested site. Best estimate is that early Thursday morning (9/17) the site was compromised by an attacker that was able to add several lines of code to the beginning of every PHP file in my public_html directory. With several other WordPress sites hosted in the same directory, there were thousands of files that needed to be cleaned up. All site RSS feeds were rendered unavailable as a result.

The hacker left a “silence is golden” message in a few of the files. There are 18,900 hits on Google for this WordPress attack.

Lucky for me, the social community not only notified me of the issue (thanks Ken Fury, @kculw, @ericsiebert and @jasonboche), but came to the rescue as well.

@SirStan (Stan Brinkeroff), A Twitter follower (that I follow as well), offered some assistance if needed and I jumped at the chance.  Stan figured out the exploit, identified the rogue code, deciphered it’s evil, implemented a temporary work around for Friday night, and then found, tweaked,  and t-shooted the script to bulk remove the offending lines in each file. Stan is definitely a PHP master and a ‘nix wizard. For saving this site Stan is now an Ugly Green Hero as well!

Stan lost 3+ hrs of his weekend to help me. I hope the VMETC and VIRTUMANIA t-shirts I am sending him are an adequate payment (let me know if not, Stan).

VMETC.com and VIRTUMANIA.net are back in business. Please let me know if anything is still messed up.

Do me a huge favor, tweet @sirstan and tell him thanks and great job! I can’t say it enough by myself.

I finally got all the photos from VMWorld 2010 off of my camera and phone and uploaded to Google Picasa. Enjoy some pics from the various parties, the Keynotes, a Giant’s game, and a trolley ride to Pier 39! Follow the link to the Picasa web album if you want a larger image or want to leave a comment on a photo.

VMWorld 2010 has come and gone. I’m definitely still recovering and trying to catch up on a lot of stuff I missed while working the Veeam booth. One of the first things I wanted to see that I heard so much about was the “vSpecialist Delight” video. This is definitely an awesome production from the team at EMC. Check it out, but please keep reading for the Veeam vPower video afterwards …

Mad props guys! BUT, I have a few observations I want to point out.

From what I can tell, although Fred and Nick wrote the lyrics, it appears that the vSpecialists are lip syncing to still yet to be signed Blaze1 actually rapping (Updated 9/5/10) Blaze1, a relative of the studio owner in Atlanta where the song was recorded, is the rapper in the song.

Here’s a screen shot from the credits at the end of the video.

Am I jealous? Sure. However, what really inspired me to write this post was when I read the lyrics available from Nick’s blog post. This rhyme especially got my attention:

Now I ain’t trying to start a backup race
Data Domain and Avamar will win that race

Fred, Thanks for the ride from the SFO airport, but “Holy 2Pac and Biggie Batman!”

That brings me to the “I Got vPower” song and video the Veeam Teeam made for VMWorld 2010. Like the guys in the bowling shirts

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