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.

730 Days Later - Replace The VirtualCenter Default SSL Certificate

Posted on June 25th, 2008 in vc2, vc2.5, vi client by Rich

Yes, this post uses another movie reference.

In the film 28 Days Later the Rage virus infects the Island of Great Britain turning all but a few survivors into zombie-like monsters called “The Infected”. The virus was unleashed when animal activists released medical research chimpanzees which ended up attacking the activists and scientists. This post is about what could cause a similar rage 730 days after installing VirtualCenter, potentially causing VI administrators to become lifeless, rabid, and insane.

After installing VirtualCenter (VC), you should check the installed SSL certificate used by the VI Client because you will most likely need to manually replace it. After a fresh installation the default certifcate expires in 730 days (or 2 years). If the certificate expires you will be unable to log in to the VirtualCenter Management Server using either the VI Client or the web administration interface.

Unfortunately, it is unclear to me at this writing if upgrading the VC Server within the 730 day period updates the certificate store.

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.

P2V error: File size is larger than maximum size supported by datastore

Posted on May 22nd, 2008 in P2V, SAN, converter, storage, vc2, vc2.5 by Rich

VMFS block size optionsI was helping a customer P2V a large development SQL server this week and ran into a VMFS configuration issue that failed the conversion. We were using the Converter Enterprise for VirtualCenter 2.5 plugin. Almost as soon as we kicked off the job it failed with an error starting with “file size is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore”. The VMFS LUN we were using as the target was an empty 1.5 TB volume, and the new VM consisted of 2 virtual disks that totaled roughly 450 GB. We had plenty of room, but the problem was not the available storage space. Instead, the issue was that we exceeded the maximum possible .vmdk size for the default VMFS 1MB block setting.

When you add new storage to an ESX host and you format the LUN with the VMFS file system you have to choose what block size setting you want to use. See the screenshot for the dropdown box used to make this choice. Notice the Maximum file size description supposedly provided to help you understand this setting. It’s hardly intuitive in my opinion, so let me try to translate - Choosing the block size determines what maximum possible .vmdk size can be created on this LUN.

If you do not change the default setting when you format a VMFS LUN

Use VMware Converter to Solve ESX Snapshot Issues

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

Carlo Costanzo over at ipmer.com has a great post about how to quickly and easily solve issues resulting from VM snapshots. As Carlo points out, too many administrators misunderstand the ESX snapshot to be a point in time backup and unfortunately do not realize it is instead a live and growing file. More often than not the snapshot is forgotten until the LUN is completely out of space at which time the VM is unstable. Trying to commit the snapshot becomes a time consuming burden.

The post 70GB Snapshot, YIKES! explains how Carlo used some “outside of the box” thinking to use VMware Converter to rescue VMs without going through the commit process. The idea is so simple it’s brilliant! Carlo writes:

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.

Installing the Microsoft SQL Native Client for VirtualCenter

Posted on May 20th, 2008 in how to, vc2.5 by Rich
When installing VirtualCenter 2.5 you may be prompted to install the Microsoft SQL Server Native Client while configuring the ODBC connection to a SQL 2005 database. The SQL Native Client is distributed as a .msi file available from Microsoft.
If you have access to SQL 2005 CD you find sqlncli.msi in the \Setup directory.

The file is also available from Microsoft’s Feature Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 page as as a stand alone install package. This page provides some more info about the Native Client as well as the download links.

More from Microsoft about the SQL Native Client:

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.

Current VirtualCenter customization wizard needs changes for Server 2008

Posted on May 5th, 2008 in server 2008, vc2.5 by Rich

Brian Desmond’s Blog : How to Sysprep in Windows 2008 documents the new sysprep process for Server 2008. In this post, Brian explains that the current tools for Windows 2000 and 2003, using setupmgr.exe to create sysprep.inf, no longer exist.

“The first step is acquiring the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) from somewhere. You can get it from Microsoft’s website, MSDN subscriber downloads, and probably the volume licensing downloads site too I’d guess (though I haven’t checked). The ISO is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94bb6e34-d890-4932-81a5-5b50c657de08&DisplayLang=en, and is about an 800MB install on my 2003 SP2 x86 box.

You’ll also need to copy the install.wim from your 2008 DVD sources folder to the hard drive as the tool won’t work with it if it doesn’t have write access.

The tool of choice is the Windows System Image Manager (WSIM)”

Check out Brian’s full post for screenshots and instructions of the entire 2008 sysprep process.

My thoughts after understanding this new sysprep process are now what changes to VirtualCenter will have to be made in order to include customization of Server 2008 in the deploy from template and clone VM wizards?

Determine ESX and VirtualCenter version compatibility

Posted on April 28th, 2008 in esx3.5, vc2.5, vcb by Rich

If you are looking for a quick reference to determine which versions of VirtualCenter are compatible with which versions of ESX then check out the VMware Infrastructure Compatibility Matrixes .pdf.

The following image is the ESX Server and VirtualCenter Compatibility table from the .pdf linked above. Note that VC 2.5 is backwards compatible with earlier ESX versions, but ESX 3.5 is only compatible with VC 2.5. Also note that VMware Server is still compatible only with VC 1.4. I believe I remember hearing something about future versions of VC will be able to manage both ESX and VMware Server hosts, but I could be wrong. Maybe with the new VMware Server 2.0?

Click on the image for a larger version.

FREE Disk space monitoring solutions for VMware virtual infrastructure

Posted on April 14th, 2008 in how to, scripts, storage, vc2, vc2.5, vi3 by Rich

VMware VirtualCenter comes with built in alerting and a handful of alerts preconfigured. Unfortunately, alerting for disk space usage of either the ESX hosts or the virtual machines is not included. Administrators continue to use common physical infrastructure monitoring and reporting applications such as NetIQ and MOM for VMs, or SNMP capable programs like HP Openview or IBM Director for ESX host monitoring. A less complex and less expensive ( cost of installing and configuring agents on each VM OS ) alternative would be to tap into VirtualCenter’s central management ability to monitor, alert, and report on disk space. This post lists a few free solutions that can already use VC2.x or quickly be configured for ESX hosts and therefore save administrators time and money. Hopefully, a future feature of VC2.x will include vital disk space metrics and alerting.

Virtual Center 2.5 now uses SQL Server 2005 Express as default database

Posted on April 3rd, 2008 in microsoft, vc2.5 by Rich

In case you have not noticed, VC 2.5 now uses SQL 2005 Express instead of MSDE for it’s default database. Of course you will normally configure an ODBC connection to either a production Oracle or SQL instance for your VC server, but if you are building a lab or if you install Update Manager you will end up with a new install of SQL Server 2005 Express.

Although MSDE and SQL 2005 Express are very similar, there are some differences to be aware of. I have recreated this comparison table from Microsoft’s Upgrading MSDE 2000 to SQL Server 2005 Express page:

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