VM /ETC

Archive for the ‘VirtualCenter’ Category

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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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.

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After upgrading Virtual Center from 2.0.1 to 2.5, all of the ESX 3.0.1 hosts were disconnected. Right clicking a host and selecting connect failed after about 5 minutes with an error that started with “failed to install the virtualcenter service.” Turns out the resolution is to manually create a missing directory on each of the affected ESX servers. Without this directory the agent install process will fail. The issue is not related to VC 2.5, but occurs when upgrading to earlier versions of VC 2.x as well.

The directory in question is /tmp/vmware-root. If it does not exist then follow these steps from VMwarewolf to reconnect your ESX hosts to VC again: Read the rest of this entry »

I was directed to a VMware Knowledge Base article about a script for cleaning up the VC database while upgrading to VC2.5. The company had about 18 months worth of data in their VC SQL database and wanted to preserve some recent historical data, but didn’t need to keep all of it. Purging data helped free disk space and reduce the time the upgrade actually took to complete.

The VMware article links to scripts for both Read the rest of this entry »

Sure, you can run Virtual Center Management Server as a Virtual Machine. VMware supports it and has published a technical note about doing it – http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_vc_in_vm.pdf. A lot of companies have built their VC2 server this way, but is it really wise to have “the manager” of the environment running in the environment it is managing?

Think about it. Virtual Center provides VMotion which in turn enables DRS and HA. Agents running on each ESX host are communicating back to VirtualCenter for these features to work. A lot could go wrong with some pretty severe consequences. This is even worse if a company has completely virtualized their network services such as DNS. I’ve personally seen where a client “shot themselves in the foot” because Virtual Center and all networking services where provided by VMs.

In my opinion the VMware tech note is a not exactly a “glowing endorsement” for installing VC2 in a VM. It is best practices guide that explains critical design criteria.

First, why would you put VC2 in a VM? The tech note begins by offering some good reasons: Read the rest of this entry »

VMware VI3.5 is scheduled to be generally available by the end of 2007. Based on a public .pdf released by VMware, this post is my summary of the new features. I’m guessing this .pdf is really a .ppt presentation that VMware is delivering, but I have not attended this presentation myself.

The screen shot is from the document and shows the new features in the defined layers.

After some sales and marketing slides the document classifies the VI3 features today across 3 layers. These layers are then used to group the new features for the rest of the presentation.

The features are divided into 3 layers: Read the rest of this entry »