Let’s call these new generation of projects V4DR (virtualization for disaster recovery) or V4BC (virtualization for business continuity).

The comparison

If I rewind 3 to 5 years ago in my career, capacity planning for server consolidation was a weekly project and topic of discussion. Customers were either in the process of converting physical servers to virtual machines or they were exploring the possibility to do so. In both cases, capacity planning scenario spreadsheets and reports were frequent “ground zero documents” to almost every project plan I was involved in.

Just like P2V projects, VM replication today also requires some of the same considerations for job scalability and times to complete – i.e. using multiple hosts as targets and making sure the network can support getting the job done as quick as possible. Not to mention ip addressing, VLAN assignments, and application connectivity after the fact. Thank goodness we no longer have to deal with hardware drivers and other unneeded software a second time. Hopefully, VM alignment is a thing of the past too!

I’m not seeing the same “ground zero documents” for replication projects, however.

Use the same capacity planning tools?

So, I’ll ask the question: 

are the existing capacity planning tools we have used previously for our P2V migrations good enough to help today with the V2V replications needed for our new V4DR and V4BC?

In theory they should be: monitor the virtual machines for several weeks and then determine the capacity and resources needed at the DR site. Leverage the capacity planning scenarios in these tools for reports like “What If I lose a Host?” or “What If I add X number of VMs?”.

Replication Capacity Planning

My point is, I think most look at today’s capacity planning tools as either no longer useful since the migration is over, or useful just for primary site capacity purposes. Looking at the output of these tools a little differently could also provide secondary site planning. A report like “What if I lose a host?” could also be viewed as “Can I consolidate my VMs on even less hosts for DR?”. “What if I add X number of VMs?” could also be viewed as “How much capacity do I need to purchase at my DR site?”.

Is what we have today good enough to be reused , or do we need a whole new version of capacity planning and virtualization assessment tools? Call the new tools Cloud / Hosting / DR/ BC / Replication Capacity Planners? Take your pick!

I’m curious. What tools that exist today do you think are already providing output that is useful for V4DR or V4BC planning? Leave a comment!

disclaimer: I work for Veeam Software. Veeam Backup and Replication is a VM replication solution. Veeam Reporter has Capacity Planning reporting capabilities.

• 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:

“Supported Virtual Machines

Paragon Go Virtual provides support for these major virtual machine vendors:

• Microsoft Virtual PC
• VMware Workstation
• VMware Fusion
• VMware Player
• Oracle VirtualBox”

BTW, although I have not tested Paragon Go Virtual yet, I’ve used Paragon’s free Backup & Recovery Free Edition in the past to build a physical recovery image of my desktops. I was impressed with the features of that product (so much so I was searching for it again), so I am confident the P2V tool will be equally impressive. The latest version of the physical backup image product is Backup & Recovery 2010 Free Advanced.

Interestingly enough, Paragon offers a free partition management tool, and the Pro version offers optimization via alignment of partitions according to physical disk sectors. Useful with VMs as well. 

After having to boot several VMs in Windows Safe Mode in order to prevent the various HP utilities and drivers from attempting to load I finally got a clue and made sure I disabled all HP Services before running the P2V conversion. That made the start up as a new VM better, but I still had to spend some quality time with Add/Remove Programs in the Windows Control Panel to uninstall all of those HP programs!

You may be thinking “OK. You should just uninstall all the HP Programs and Drivers before the P2V.” I could, but there goes my safety net, fall back plan. I want the physical server to remain operational exactly as it was in case something unexpected prevents the P2V from succeeding. It’s rare, but if it does happen I want to be able to power back on the physical server. Maintenance windows are short and I’m not one to make my night longer than necessary.

Looks like one of my GestaltIT Tech Field Day brothers has made my next late night date with HP server migrations a little easier. Simon Seagrave’s post VMware P2V – Easy Method to Remove HP Agents and Utilities is about the HP Proliant Support Pack Cleaner v1.1 utility available from ctxadmtools.musumeci.com.ar – a site self described as full of “FREE Tools for Citrix, Microsoft and VMware Administrators and Consultants.”

I haven’t tried this utility myself yet, there doesn’t appear to be any documentation for it, and Seagrave doesn’t mention how/when he uses the utility, so I’ll have to figure out later if my process of disabling all the HP services works with this Support Pack Cleaner. I imagine it’ll work fine. I’ll just run it after I boot the migrated VM for the first time.

Sorry Windows Control Panel and Add/Remove Programs, we’ve spent a lot of time together over the years but it’s time for me to move on. Thanks Simon!

Seagrave has also previously posted about a script to do the same job. Check out both of his posts!

Vizioncore is banking on creating wider interest and adoption of its full product suite in the virtualization market, but for now administrators definitely come out the winners with these great tools at no cost. The free products mentioned in this post (as well as all of Vizioncore’s software) can be downloaded here.

I’ve summarized these utilities in the rest of this post.

vConverter SC – 4.2

I have to admit, a version of vConverter offered for free has caught my attention. Very rarely would I recommend the licensing investment of using an alternative to the free stand alone or the bundled enterprise version of VMware’s Converter. Looks like Vizioncore has realized as much and has made a smart decision to get consultants and admins to start using their migration tool. I know I’ll be trying out vConverter SC on the next migration project.

Here is some of the reasons why from the vConverter SC web page:

“Vizioncore’s vConverter is enterprise-class software that significantly reduces the time, cost and effort required to convert physical and virtual machines to VMware^®, Microsoft^®, or XenServer™. vConverter is suitable for all types and sizes of server consolidation initiatives where several or even thousands of physical servers need to be virtualized.

Server Consolidation Strengths

vConverter is able to migrate more servers per conversion window than any other conversion method or technology, dramatically reducing risk, cost and time from start to finish. This is achieved via the automation of many pre and post migration tasks, and accelerated conversion times. Superior disk and network I/O algorithms ensure the fastest possible conversions.

Conversion Flexibility and Usability

An intuitive GUI allows administrators to convert single or multiple servers simultaneously within just a few seconds of setup. Conversion jobs can also be scheduled for non-peak times to ensure as little disruption as possible.

And Much More…

vConverter provides a wide variety of additional conversion capabilities including automated target machine clean up and configuration, custom script execution, cold machine cloning, and multiple destination support. vConverter provides the most robust and easy to use solution available for P2V and V2V conversions today. And it just got better – because you can now use it for unlimited conversion initiatives for free!”

vControl Multi-Hypervisor Management – 1.6.5

Vizioncore vControl is a multi vendor virtual infrastructure management server that not only provides remote virtual machine control, but also enables self service provisioning and virtual machine business continuity capabilities. Although I have not had the opportunity to use vControl yet, the product seems to provide many vCenter functions without VMware’s management server in the environment.

With a browser based management interface available from either > Firefox v2 or IE 6/7 it would appear that many VI administrative tasks can be easily automated from any desktop operating system.

Video demonstrations, manuals, documentation, and a download link can be found from Vizioncore’s vControl page.

Some quick notes on vControl

• Works with
  • VMware ESX/ESXi
  • Microsoft Hyper-V
  • Citrix XenSerer
  • Sun Solaris Zones
• Key Product Features

  

vOptimizer WasteFinder – 2.2

Wastefinder is a utility that can analyze a virtual storage and determine if various optimizations can be made to improve health and performance. It providea reporting for cost justification to purchase Vizioncore’s full Optimizer Pro which can then automate the ongoing remediation of storage improvements. Best of all, Wastefinder actually performs 2 optimizations: vmdk alignment and automated disk “right sizing” to resolve VM free space issues.

Until now, NetApp’s ESX Host Utilities provided the only virtual disk alignment tool I was aware of at no cost, but you did have to be a NetApp customer to use the MBRAlign script bundled with that package.

More info on the product from the Wasterfinder web page:

“Wasted Storage Scan

vOptimizer WasteFinder scans through vCenter Server/ESX Hosts and individual VMs looking for and then adding up over-allocated VM storage throughout data centers. Optionally, the Wasted Storage Scan can identify all VMs not in proper 64K partition alignment.

Space and Alignment Summary Report

This powerful report displays total used and over allocated VM storage discovered by the Wasted Storage Scan. vOptimizer WasteFinder then presents a total storage savings estimate based on user entered values including storage cost and desired free space. The Space and Alignment Summary Report is invaluable in gauging costs of wasted storage and which VMs should be 64K partition aligned to boost performance.

Space Optimization

vOptimizer WasteFinder freeware also provides two free (2) storage optimizations. This automated procedure will right-size VMs that are running out of space or are excessively large and also perform 64K partition alignment.”

Anyone who has already “harvested” their own “low hanging fruit” knows there is so much to consider. The p2v tool and process are the tip of the iceberg, change control is just below the surface, and there are many more technical challenges hidden in the depths. I’ve blogged in the past about treating the migration to VI the same as you would changing physical data centers. It’s not just server builds and operating system installs.

These same challenges experienced during the initial consolidation are still there for the rest of the bunch, but most likely on a much more public and political scale. In fact, since more times than not these same servers were left out of the first consolidation scenario as “bad virtualization candidates, it’s likely time to

To help visualize what is really needed, Rick Vanover created a great flow chart that, although it illustrates a complex process, may be the simplest starting point for understanding how to get the rest of the applications/servers virtualized. Vanover’s Virtualization Review post titled Advanced Virtual Conversion Flowchart provides for download a Visio diagram he presented recently at the 2009 TechMentor Conference. Vanover says it best:

“This is more detail than you would need for the typical conversion, but is helpful when you have difficult systems that you haven’t converted for any reason yet”

What impressed me is that the flowchart takes you through a logical process to consider all factors and their impact. For example, storage and networking each have their own decision points. Using the flowchart makes the administrator realize that just because the consolidation tool says there is room in the current VI and the hosts have enough RAM, CPU, network ports, and disk doesn’t mean the p2v will be a snap and the planning is over.

Here is a screen shot of one of the tabs in the .vsd.

Read Vanover’s post and get a copy of the Visio. On a server by server basis, combine your favorite capacity planning tool’s results with the flowchart’s process before picking the rest of the “fruit in the canopy”.

From a comment by Dave O. on Scott Lowe’s post vSphere Virtual Machine Upgrade Process

“To dump the IP config using netsh from a command line:

netsh interface ip dump > c:\ipconfig.txt

Since Windows will most likely see the new NIC as “Local Area Connection 2″ (or something similar) you have to modify the above text file and change the NIC name to match the new NIC’s name. Or change the new NIC’s name on the host to match what’s in the file above. Either way works. “

Here’s a screen shot of the output of the command on my desktop.

“To re-import it:

netsh -c interface –f c:\ipconfig.txt”

As Dave O. points out in the rest of his comment, the ability to save complex, multiple ip address TCP/IP settings and then reapply them later to the new virtual NIC can be a huge time saver.

If you also receive a message that the ip address is already in use then check out the post The IP address you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter for instructions on how to remove the hidden network devices causing the trouble.

The following cut and pastes were taken while skimming through the release notes and highlight the changes that caught my attention.

What’s New

• Guest Operating System Customization Improvements – VirtualCenter now supports customization of Windows Server 2008 guest operating systems.
• Performance Overview Charts – VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4 introduces the Performance Overview plug-in, which provides a single view of key performance metrics for CPU, memory, disk, and network without having to navigate through multiple charts. The aggregated charts show high-level summaries of resource distribution.

Plug-Ins Updates

This release of the VMware Infrastructure 3 software suite also includes the following:

• An update to VMware Converter Enterprise. For more information, see the VMware Converter Enterprise Update 4 for VirtualCenter 2.5 Release Notes.
• An update to VMware Update Manager. For more information, see the VMware Update Manager 1.0 Update 4 for VirtualCenter 2.5 Release Notes.
• The Performance Overview plug-in.

Two builds of VMware Infrastructure Management Installer are available for download.

• VMware-VIMSetup-2.5.0-U4-English.iso or VMware-VIMSetup-2.5.0-U4-English.zip – These files include an English-only version of the VI Client, which runs in English regardless of the language of the Windows system. Use this installer to install a VI Client that will run in English on Chinese, German or Japanese versions of the Windows operating system.
• VMware-VIMSetup-2.5.0-U4-localized.iso or VMware-VIMSetup-2.5.0-U4-localized.zip – These files include a localized installer that installs all files needed to run in English, Chinese, German, or Japanese. The VI Client used at runtime will correspond to the locale of the current Windows operating system if the locale is Chinese, German or Japanese. On Windows operating systems set to locales other than Chinese, German, or Japanese, the English version of the VI Client will be used.

I am assuming it is also recommended that you upgrade all instances of the

Previous versions of the Update Manager Plug-In are not compatible with U4. According to the release notes you must manually enable Update Manager from the Plugins Menu again after upgrading. During the installation of the new Update Manager Plug-in there is an option to install the experimental PowerShell Library set of commandlets

The update to the Converter Enterprise Plug-In adds all the new features announced in the recently released Converter 4 Standalone Edition. It is unclear to me if the previous Converter plug-in versions are updated / replaced, but the release notes seem to suggest that both version 3 and version 4 of Converter can coexist together. I have not had a chance to install U4 yet so this will become clearer at that time.

I look forward to checking out the new Performance Overview Charts. Personally, I was satisfied navigating through the various charts, but a single window with all information does not sound like a bad thing to me!

Microsoft changed the customization process for Windows Server 2008, and I am guessing that the latest vCenter has integrated the new sysprep process to fully support customization of Server 2008 VMs. This will be another wait to see what’s changed scenario for me after I get an instance of VC U4 running.

Check out the new features listed in the Release Notes:

The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone release adds several new features including:

• Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Linux (RHEL, SUSE and Ubuntu) as source
• Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Windows Server 2008 as source
• Hot cloning improvements to clone any incremental changes to physical machine during the P2V conversion process
• Support for converting new third-party image formats including Parallels Desktop virtual machines, newer versions of Symantec, Acronis, and StorageCraft
• Workflow automation enhancements to include automatic source shutdown, automatic start-up of the destination virtual machine as well as shutting down one or more services at the source and starting up selected services at the destination
• Target disk selection and the ability to specify how the volumes are laid out in the new destination virtual machine
• Destination virtual machine configuration, including CPU, memory, and disk controller type

Let em re-emphasize some of the features that I find to be “game changers” for a free P2V migration product.

Live migrate Linux source physical machines. Despite a post title to the contrary, the Malaysia VMware Communities Blog has already tested a successful Linux source P2V.

Install VMware Converter on a centralized Linux or Windows system and access remotely with a client to run P2Vs. You can still install it locally on the source to be migrated as well. You have the option for both during the installation.

Clone incremental changes from a source server to a target VM. You had to use other P2V tools to do this previously. I never had a chance to test this. Frankly, I’ve never had a situation before now where I thought it was necessary. It makes more sense to me in a pure migration scenario to schedule down time and migrate. Maybe this is a good fit for a free back up to VM solution?

No longer do you need to manually shut down or disable Windows services before the migration on the source server. Now you can select which services to stop on the source as well as the state of the services when the new VM boots straight from the vCenter Converter GUI.

Now you can select the target VM .vmdk disk layout. Spread multiple partitions across multiple VMFS datastores to support deduplication, replication, or SAN reorganization designs.

Convert multi CPU core source servers to single core VMs. No more worrying about making sure Windows is performing correctly by manually changing Windows to use a single processor HAL. I would even recommend admins consider V2Vs of existing VMs that were created as P2Vs with the older VMware Converter. If you haven’t corrected your VMs already, let version 4 of the standalone Converter do it for you!