VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘NFS’

This is just a quick note that the previous issue with vSphere customers using NFS storage and CBT has been resolved with a recent patch. More on the previuous problem and the new patch in this KB article:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1031106

The KB was updated 7.26.11

VMware has announced an upgrade release of Site Recovery Manager (SRM).  Available today, SRM version 4 not only adds the much anticipated compatibility for vSphere 4 but also provides support for NFS storage, allows multi instance replication between single site pairs, and can be managed in vCenter Linked Mode. More details on the new version follow in the paragraphs below.

VMware customers who currently own SRM with active Sales and Support (SnS) contracts will receive the upgrade at no additional cost. VMware has not changed the per processor licensing model or cost for new customers wishing to purchase.

Some quick links for SRM 4:

• SRM 4. Release notes – http://www.vmware.com/support/srm/srm_releasenotes_4_0.html
• Upgrade KB article – http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013166
• SRM download – http://downloads.vmware.com/d/ and select Site Recovery Manger
• Michael White’s post SRM 4.0 is here! The wait for vSphere and NFS support is over! on the VMware Uptime Blog covers upgrade strategy options.
• VMware’s documentation for all version of SRM – http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/srm_pubs.html

vSphere 4.0 Supported

The main requirement to enable the new compatibility and features in SRM is upgrading vCenter to version 4. In fact, Read the rest of this entry »

Surprisingly, Iomega can provide VMware certified low cost shared storage. I’ve heard mixed reports about actual performance, but none the less the filers provide cost effective options for VMware labs or small virtual environments.

The image to the right shows recent pricing on Amazon.com.

Fellow GestaltIT.com author and Microsoft Storage MVP Stephen Foskett has a great post with positive things to say on the Iomega models.

Iomega Grows Up and Moves Out of the House – Stephen Foskett

“…it was a surprise to find that the ix4-200r is certified compatible with ESX using both iSCSI and NFS right out of the gate. This is the only inexpensive storage system to wear a VMware badge, and this alone will likely make it a fixture in small offices and VMware labs. The desktop StorCenter ix4-100 and StorCenter ix2 are already widely used in these environments even without iSCSI, after all. The ix4-200r provides a complete SAN-in-a-box, supporting multiple NAS and iSCSI shares with dynamic allocation of the internal RAID-5 protected storage.”

Here is a screen shot from the on line VMware HCL showing the certified Iomega models.

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 »

Part of the magic hosting multiple virtual machines (VMs) on VMware ESX server is accomplished by leaning on the host’s CPUs to simultaneously handle networking loads. The more network I/O generated the more the CPUs have to work. When this happens the performance of the ESX host and the VMs can suffer because the result is limited access to available physical processing. Some common network I/O examples are software iSCSI adapter or NFS access to data stores, live migration of VMs between ESX servers via VMotion, and even administrator access with the VI Client.

Fortunately, ESX/ESXi 3.5 TCP Segmentation Offload, or TSO, can remove some of the networking burden from the host’s CPUs and improve overall performance. When the ESX server’s physical NICs support it, enabling TSO is as simple as choosing the right virtual network adapter, the Enhanced VMxnet adapter, for the VM. Surprisingly, making the Enhanced VMxnet adapter available to the VM is not a straightforward process because the Enhanced VMxnet adapter might not be an option in the virtual NIC properties or the Add New Hardware wizard.

First, you may be wondering how TSO reduces CPU overhead. Read the rest of this entry »

This will be another live blog session. Look for updates to this post every 15 minutes. I’m curious if any new best practices or insights will be mentioned that compliment the new vNetworking and vStorage pieces of the VMware VDC-OS.

Well, starting the session with the same disclaimer about the forward looking statements confirms my hopes! On the other hand, the forward statements could be new NetApp technologies. Either case would be cool!

A disclaimer before you read my notes: I have limited storage administration experience. Take my notes for what they are and understand the source (me). Help me out if I state something wrong.

This talk will be primarily on the NFS storage protocol. “NFS might be the best kept secret for virtualization”. To support this claim the speaker is talking about areas to consider when comparing storage protocols. Performance, Ease of Management, and High Availability are the main categories to consider. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes you need to access a windows share from an ESX server. Usually this is the case when need to transfer downloaded files such as scripts and patches to ESX, or if you want to transfer files from ESX like the diagnostic package generated for VMware support. This post explains how to create a mount point on the ESX host that is mapped to a Windows share.

In a similar post titled Create a NFS share for VM ISO files with Windows 2003 Server R2 I referenced vmware-land.com’s VMware Tips for ESX. I am referencing that site again for this post. The following instructions are also taken from the tip on creating an ISO mount point that points to a Windows server. The goal of the example instructions below is to add a sub directory to the ESX /vmimages directory that stores cdrom images for VMs: Read the rest of this entry »