This post is a writeup of a project for a master’s class in Decision Support Systems at Murray State. This is my first dive into VMware PowerCLI aside from some one shots. All feedback is welcome. Our Problems Problem 1: Servers are not being virtualized due to a decentralized procurement process A decentralized server procurement process presents many problems to an organization. There are many gains with standardizing OS/hardware platforms. Problem 2: Servers are not being virtualized because knowledge is required to make “Virtualize/Don’t Virtualze” decision...

It’s been months since I’ve updated. It’s been a busy summer but I’m delivering some new posts: iSCSI SAN performance woes in ESX 3.5 ESX 3.5 -> ESX 3.5 U4 and Virtual Center 2.5 -> vCenter 2.5 U4 ESX 3.5 U4 Kickstart for IBM xSeries and QLA4050 While the big boys are at VMworld the small shops are back to getting things done.

This was our shop’s first real dive into kickstarts. The material I read in Visible Ops really emphasized track able/repeatable processes for setting up systems. One great way to do that is through kickstart scripts and some kind of version control system. We used Subversion. I’ve edited a few parts out of this, but I spent a while finding several kickstart scripts that accomplished parts of what we needed. I highly customized one for our environment....

Here’s the ‘script’ read from while doing our ESX upgrades: In general: Do lots of up front work with kickstarts and analysis Each ESX Host Put host in maintenance mode Shut Down File request with storage administrator to make only boot LUN is visible to host as we are about to do some potentially damaging operations Put in new HBA (QLA4050) Boot to floppy diskette with QLA 4050 BIOS firmware updates Upgrade HBA BIOS iFlash If the system detects a QLx40xx controller, it displays the following message: QLx40xx Adapter found at I/O address: xxxxxxxx You will need to enter the adapter address Select “FB” to flash the BIOS....

We filed support requests with IBM and VMware and went through a very lengthy process without any results. Each of our hosts had the following iSCSI HBAs: QLA4010 QLA4050C A while ago we found out QLA4010 is not on the ESX 3.5 HCL even though it runs with a legacy driver. As our virtual environment grew we noticed storage performance lagging. This was particularly evident with our Oracle 10G Database server running our staging instance of Banner Operational Data Store....

Yesterday I made a mistake. We have a virtual machine set up to test Spacewalk which runs CentOS. It has a virtual disk for this OS on datastore1 and a virtual disk for the data on datastore2. datastore1 had 11 gb free and datastore2 had 300 gb free. I snapshotted the VM, we did some work, and I committed the snapshot. Except it didn’t work. Now the machine won’t stay booted....

AutoPager is a Firefox extension which follows the “Next” links on lots of pages and loads them inline. If you’re already using the extension, go to AutoPager -> Update Setting -> Update Setting Online. The authors just added VMTN forums and NetApp Technology Network to their supported sites. This means if you’re reading a long thread you don’t have to click next. You can just keep scrolling – the next page is loaded inline....

In our organization, the storage administrator is completely separate from the VI Administrator. This process requires some coordination with the storage administrator. Here is our process for restoring a VM from our SAN snapshots. A lot of this information was gleamed from Scott Lowe’s posts on FlexClones. Unfortunately, we do not have SMVI (the jaw dropping video demo is here) at this moment. It appears NetApp has made this process trivial with that application....

Here’s my PlanetV12n Wish List (in no particular order): Provide feed customization. Strategy/Administration/Business Case/etc. Virtualization has turned into an extremely broad topic. Too much noise in the feed reader is a loss of value to PlanetV12n. Provide more virtualization related feeds from vendors like EMC, NetApp, Dell, and IBM. Require full articles. If there is resistance on this, just politely remind publishers that advertising is available via RSS Give us the option of having OPML output of PlanetV12n....

I have no problem making it clear I’m relatively new to the virtual world. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn fast. Here are a few tools I’ve used to become a better VI Administrator: Training. Pros: Certified knowledge from the source. We hosted a VMware Jumpstart, and that training is without a doubt my catalyst into the rest of the virtual world. Training teaches you how to talk the talk so that other sources of knowledge are useful....