Storage VMotion now supported for iSCSI

Posted on June 26th, 2008 in SAN, esx3.5, iSCSI, stor vmotion, storage by Rich

Earlier this week the VMware VI Team Blog reported that as of ESX version 3.5 Update 1 Storage VMotion is now officially supported for iSCSI SANs. This means that administrators can reorganize virtual machines without down time in order to match any storage needs. The Storage VMotion and 10Gb Ethernet support for iSCSI SAN’s post explains:

“Although Storage VMotion is designed to work with any type of storage, it was initially supported only with Fibre Channel SANs. As of Update 1, Storage VMotion is supported with iSCSI SAN’s for moving virtual machine disk files in the following scenarios:

- From iSCSI SANs to other iSCSI SANs

- From iSCSI SANs to FibreChannel SANs

- From FibreChannel SANs to iSCSI SANs

In addition, we now support the use of 10Gb Ethernet for iSCSI in a VMware Infrastructure environment.”

In my experience Storage VMotion has worked great, but be careful with VMs that have higher I/O utilizations.

How to get ESX Host and Virtual Machine Disk I/O Stats

Posted on June 25th, 2008 in SAN, esx, esx3.5, how to, storage, vc2, vc2.5, vmware by Rich

Lately, I have had several clients and peers ask me how to get disk usage and performance statistics from their current virtual infrastructure of ESX hosts and virtual machines . Some needed data for planning and sizing a new SAN, while others needed statistics for upgrading, adding more disks, or for optimizing multi path and VMFS performance. In one case the customer was trouble shooting poor VM performance issues. Regardless of the objectives there are some built in tools in both VirtualCenter and ESX server that can get this information for you. This post explains 2 native methods:

  • Using the VI Cleint to access the Performance data in VirtualCenter
  • Using esxtop from the ESX Service Console

I have included plenty of screenshots. As always, click on them for larger views. The rest of this post is in an outline format, but should be easy enough to follow.

VMware to Certify Broader Range of One, Two, and Four Socket Systems

Posted on June 6th, 2008 in esx 3i, esx3.5, news, vmware by Rich

One of the most popular topics of discussion in the virtualization community has always been about installing ESX on a whitebox server. Two of the most popular posts on VM /ETC have been ESX home lab hardware shopping list and Cheap ESX solutions for testing which are both about finding and using hardware not on the VMware HCL that can run ESX. Now, with VMware announcing new relationships with ASUS, Gigabyte, Tyan, Inventec, and Supermicro, ESX 3.5 and ESXi will be certified, supported, and even ship embedded on more server platforms than ever before.

VMware provides a timeframe of availability in the official announcement linked above:

Use the VI Client Datastore Browser to Upload Files to ESX Hosts

Posted on June 4th, 2008 in esx3.5, how to, vi client by Rich

Running the latest version of ESX3.5 enables a lot of usability enhancements in the VI Client. Many of the administrative tasks and configurations previously performed on the Service Console or by third party tools are now accessible as new options directly from the GUI. For example, you previously could not use the Datastore Browser to upload files such as ISOs to the ESX hosts, but instead had to use a tool such as WinSCP or other similar methods. With the ESX3.5 VI Client you can now transfer files right from the client. What makes this native ability even cooler is the fact that you no longer have to enable remote root access or create a special user. If you connect the VI Client to VirtualCenter as a local administrator, or if you connect to the ESX host as root you can use the VI Client to upload files without any other configurations.

The following screenshot of the VI Client is showing the Summary Tab of the ESX host.

VI Client Open Console Attempt Fails

Posted on June 2nd, 2008 in esx, esx3.5, vi client by Rich

I ran into an issue today with the open console command from the VI Client. I was already connected to a stand alone ESX3.5 host. I had just finished creating a new VM, configuring the virtual CD to use the OS install media .iso, and I had powered on the new virtual machine. When I right clicked on the VM and selected “open console” I got the following error message:

“error connecting: can not connect to host x.x.x.x: a connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.”

Once again the VMware Communities forum came to the rescue.

Configure PortGroup settings across all ESX hosts simultaneously

Posted on May 31st, 2008 in esx3.5, how to, scripts, vc2.5, vi3 by Rich

VI3 Enterprise features VMotion, DRS, and HA require identical virtual networking settings on all of your ESX hosts. Unfortunately, VirtualCenter does not apply a central configuration policy or inheritance of settings from the cluster. Maybe a future version of VirtualCenter will evolve to include global configuration abilities? Until such a version is created, each ESX server’s virtual networking settings will continue to be configured individually by most administrators. However, there are some time saving, global configuration options available today. This post summarizes two methods provided by the virtualization community for creating PortGroups simultaneously across multiple ESX hosts.

Can’t delete USB Controller after P2V migration to ESX3.5

Posted on May 29th, 2008 in P2V, esx3.5, how to by Rich

While attempting to clean up unnecessary virtual hardware after several P2V migrations this week, I was unable to remove the virtual USB Controller from new virtual machines. I got an uneditable device warning pop up window that said “Internal problem: The system information reported by the host for ‘VirtualUSBController’ is inconsistent. This device cannot currently be edited.”

Xtravirt XVS creates a FREE SAN out of local ESX VMFS

Posted on May 23rd, 2008 in appliance, esx3.5, iSCSI, storage, vi3 by Rich

XVS Reference Architecture from xtravirt.comMove over Lefthand Networks VSA, xtravirt.com has provided a free alternative for creating a virtual iSCSI SAN. Xtravirt Virtual SAN (XVS) is a virtual machine appliance that runs on two of your ESX hosts’ local VMFS datastores to create a single, synchronized iSCSI SAN. XVS allows the creation of ESX clusters for VI3 Enterprise features without purchasing a physical shared storage solution.

“The Xtravirt Virtual SAN (XVS) appliance for VMware ESX3 Server is a free solution to provide the benefits of shared VMFS storage without the cost of a SAN – this allows the utilisation of otherwise unused local storage in the ESX server to facilitate enterprise level features such as vMotion, DRS and HA normally only available through the use of a shared storage device. All volume data is synchronously replicated between hosts, providing full fail-over capability with data integrity in the event of host, disk or appliance failure.”

XVS is the perfectly priced storage solution for the home ESX test lab, small and mediium businesses, or the small remote branch office.

To download a copy of the virtual appliance and for more about XVS go to xtravirt.com.

updated 5.24.08

Currently XVS is only configurable as a single LUN across paired ESX hosts. A third ESX hosts can use the virtual ip address for it’s SAN, but the additional host(s) would not be using their local storage as part of the synchronized SAN. Future editions will hopefully expand the storage across more than 2 ESX hosts.

11 best practices for upgrading to ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5

Posted on May 21st, 2008 in esx3.5, how to, vc2.5 by Rich

Upgrading to ESX3.5 and VirtualCeter 2.5 Best Practices is a VMware KB article that lists best practice recommendations when performing the VI upgrade. As explained in the article:

This document provides additional steps which may be useful when upgrading to ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5. It is assumed at this point that you have also read the Upgrade Guide.

Although the article contains 11 items in the list, in my opinion the last few are common steps (place the cd in the cd-rom drive of the host etc.) and not really best practices.
Regardless, review the following before performing the upgrade and follow these recommendations to minimize trouble.

VirtualCenter is sluggish while waiting for hung tasks.

Posted on May 19th, 2008 in esx, esx3.5, vc2, vc2.5 by Rich

A Google Group discussion thread asking for help with hung tasks in VirtualCenter points out an important Service Console configuration best practice. Killing tasks on vcenter starts off by asking if there is a way to kill several VirtualCenter tasks that are bogging down the management server. Although the method for killing individual tasks is never realized, understanding potential reasons for the problem is the more important take away. Fixing the VirtualCenter performance problem results after correcting ESX host resource issues.

Staying ahead of the hypervisor competition

Posted on May 14th, 2008 in esx, esx3.5, vmware by Rich

I am proud to announce that SearchVMware.com has invited me to become a contributer to the Virtualization Pro Blog. My first post was published earlier today.

“Maybe it’s because I just spent a week at the VMware Partner Exchange in San Diego and I am full of the VMware “Kool Aid”, but it appears to me that VMware has a pretty good strategy, focus and direction for staying ahead of the competition. While other vendors are still perfecting and marketing their hypervisor, VMware is talking about automation and management of the virtual data center with products like Site Recovery Manager, Lab Manager, Stage Manager, and Lifecycle Manager.”


Please check out the rest of Is hypervisor competition really just about the hypervisor?

Be sure to add this great virtualization site to your bookmarks and feed readers and look for future posts from me there!

Troubleshooting ESX logs

Posted on May 13th, 2008 in breakout, esx 3i, esx3.5, how to, vc2, vmware by Rich

Another session I attended at VMware’s Partner Exchange last week was titled ESX Log Analysis - Tech 207. I did not realize it when I signed up, but this was essentially the same session that I previously attended at VMWorld 2007 last September. I did a quick Google search on this topic to find the VMWorld slides and noticed that Scott Lowe live blogged from San Francisco while attending this very session. Then Searching on the VMWorld.com site I found that this was also a session at VMWorld Europe 2008 titled VI3 Advanced Log Analysis. You can get a copy of the .ppt used at the VMWorld Europe 2008 session on my Files Page.

There is nothing really too new about t-shooting ESX logs here, but the following are my notes from last week. On the other hand, there are some general notes directly related to ESXi logs and using Update Manager included.

I cleaned up my notes a little, but the following is still a raw outline. use These notes and the .ppt mentioned above to hopefully help educate yourself on this topic.

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