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Archive for the ‘vi3’ Category

Admins of heavily consolidated VMware VI 3 Clusters should make plans as soon as possible to download Update 5 of VMware vCenter Server to take advantage of increased performance and scalability. The latest update to vCenter 2.5 was released on July 10 and boasts improvements to support fail over management of up to 80 VMs per ESX/ESXi host in a HA (High Availability) Cluster.

The following details were taken from the VMware VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 Release Notes:

What’s New

Support for High Consolidation in VMware HA Clusters – VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 includes significant performance and scalability improvements to VMware HA. Use VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 for environments with more than 35 virtual machines (VMs) per host in an HA cluster.

For information on the ESX Server host settings required for this scalability improvement, see ESX Server host settings required for environments with up to 80 virtual machines per host in an HA Cluster (KB 1012002).

Upgrading or Migrating to VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5

This release supports upgrading from VirtualCenter 1.4.1, VirtualCenter 2.0.2 (including Update 1, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, and Update 5), VirtualCenter 2.5, VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 1, VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 2, VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3, or VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4, to VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5. Review the detailed upgrade and migration instructions and guidelines that are provided in the Upgrade Guide.

Following the above link to KB 1012002 explains that upgrading vCenter 2.5 to U5 is just the start. VI 3 admins also need to make some additional configurations on ESX/ESXi hosts to achieve the 80 VMs per host improvements.

“Starting with the VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 release, an ESX Server host in an HA cluster can support up to 80 virtual machines. For all virtual machines to power on on other hosts in the cluster, if hosts within the failover capacity limit fail, you need to ensure that the following parameters in the ESX Server hosts are set with the following values:

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A lot of companies are using NFS as the preferred protocol to shared storage for VMware Virtual Infrastructure. In my personal experience, The administrative options and convenience of NFS is unmatched, and the virtual machine (VM) performance is surprising.

For example, I recently helped migrate a company from ESX 2.X to new a installation of VI 3.5. Since the client did not have any additional space available on their fiber channel (FC) SAN for a new VMFS3 volume, we temporarily used a Windows Server 2003 R2 NFS share to host 2 dozen VMs until the existing FC volumes could be rebuilt and reconnected. The customer actually ran their production environment for 2 weeks in this configuration and was experiencing better performance. Newer hardware for the ESX hosts also contributed to this increase, but the point is that the NFS storage was not a bottleneck.

For those that are considering NFS, I was recently forwarded a list of links that provide sound arguments and testimonials on the unique advantages of using NFS with VMware. Although the published date of some of the posts that are referenced might be a bit dated, the content is still valid. Here is the list with quotes from some of the posts, but be sure to read the all in full for more information. Read the rest of this entry »

VMware’s simulcast event was about a revolutionary Cloud OS and how Vsphere is a visionary, data center changing software release. Now that it has been officially announced, there are posts everywhere about the features and functionalities of VMware vSphere 4. Those discussions are exciting and true, but I feel the fact that vSphere is simply the latest release of ESX and VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI) gets lost in the fanfare. I tend to think at the upgrade and implementation level, so this post quickly focuses on how current customers will get their new licenses along with a few changes to consider before upgrading. The Cloud will happen, and there is no doubt that VMware vSphere will be instrumental in that, but for now, VMware customers need to understand what is involved in transitioning existing virtual infrastructure to vSphere 4.

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I’ve blogged about installing ESX/ESXi as VMware Server 2.0 virtual machines (VMs) before. In fact, that’s how I’m set up in my basement lab. However, I never took the time to figure out what settings needed to be modified to actually run VMs hosted by VMware Server ESX VMs. Xtravirt.com, already well known for the VI 3.5 in a box whitepaper explaining how to run ESX hosts and vCenter as a VMware Workstation VMs, has now published a PDF showing how it can be done on VMware Server 2.0.

So, if running VI 3.5 on VMware Workstation is so popular why do it on VMware Server 2.0?

• VMware Server is free
• VMware Server can run on Linux. You can dual boot your PC/notebook when you need to run VMware Server.
• Even if you use Ubuntu, for example, with the graphical Gnome desktop you should have less overhead on a PC/notebook then a Windows Vista or XP OS and slightly better performance.

Let me know if you try it. I will be making the changes to my set up this weekend.

updated 04.17.09 – I was not clear here originally. I’m not sure if VMs are able to run on this config. I will test and let everyone know.

I found out about the new whitepaper from the virtualization.info post:

Tech: How to run VMware ESX 3.5/i on VMware Server 2.0

Image via Wikipedia

With all the recent talk about the software from Rove and VMware that provides mobile device access to managing VMware Infrastructure, administrators now need to consider how they will actually connect mobile phones to vCenter and ESX hosts behind the firewall. Fortunately, a thread from the VMware vCenter Mobile Access Technology Preview Community sheds some insight on how VMware actually tested the vCenter Mobile Access virtual appliance (vCMA) with several different mobile devices.

From The official “how will I connect to this thing” thread: Read the rest of this entry »

VMware has announced a new online calculator that specifically compares the total cost of implementing VI 3.X and Microsoft Hyper-V. An online tool similar to Microsoft’s competitive calculator introduced last year, the VMware Virtualization Cost-Per-Application Calculator is designed to emphasize that the cost of implementing virtual infrastructure is more than the expense of licenses. In the past many have criticized the cost of VMware’s flagship suite of VI 3.X Enterprise products as too expensive, and with both Citrix and Microsoft now claiming to offer free hypervisors, VMware’s new calculator helps illustrate the message that VM density at equal performance matters to the cost analysis bottom line.

“Following the lead of analysts and customers, VMware has adopted “cost per application” as a more accurate metric to compare costs between virtualization solutions. Going beyond a simplistic license price comparison, evaluating cost per application takes into consideration the number of virtual machines that can be run on a single server, or the ”virtual machine density” enabled by a specific virtualization solution. The higher the virtual machine density enabled, the higher the server consolidation ratio. The higher the consolidation ratio, the more an organization can reduce its infrastructure costs (including costs for servers, networking. storage, power and datacenter space), and software costs, (including guest operating system and virtualization software licenses). Following this logic, the solution that can provide the higher consolidation of servers – without an impact to performance – also provides the most value to customers.”

I decided to test the calculator with a 50 VM / application example. Read the rest of this entry »

VMware announced an upcoming technology preview will be available in April for vCenter Mobile Access (vCMA). Srinivas Krishnamurti, Director of Product Management and Market Development for VMware, provided a guest post on the VMTN Blog with news about new project. Introducing VMware vCenter Mobile Access describes vCMA as a virtual appliance that will allow admins to monitor and manage their VMware virtual infrastructure from a mobile phone with what appears to be most of the same functionality available from the VI Client.

Here’s some details from Srinivas’ post about vCMA:

“Did you ever get paged when you are in a meeting about some virtual machine that needed to be restarted?  Or, did you ever get an alert when you are at your kid’s soccer game or at the movies that a particular server is overloaded?  Actually, imagine any scenario where you need to actively manage your datacenter but you are nowhere close to a PC.  Wouldn’t it be nice to act on the notification from your mobile phone?  After all, we are now a generation that doesn’t leave home without a mobile phone…

Introducing VMware vCenter Mobile Access (vCMA).  vCMA allows you to monitor and manage VMware Infrastructure from your mobile phone with an interface that is optimized for such devices. Specifically, it allows you to:

• Search for virtual machines in your data center
• Migrate virtual machines from one host to another using vMotion
• Execute recovery plans using VMware Site Recovery Manager
• Access Scheduled Tasks, Alarms and Events
• And much more…”

This YouTube video shows off the vCMA on a Blackberry. Read the rest of this entry »