Most of this was taken from this site: http://conshell.net/wiki/index.php/Linux_P2V Up front work Determine exactly what you’re doing, and the resources you’ll need on the VMware side. as root: sfdisk -s /dev/hda: 39070080 total: 39070080 blocks To find the size in GB, divide by 1024 twice. 39070080/1024/1024 = 37.260 GB Partition layout - know exactly the partitions, sizes and FS types. This can be gleaned from the output of `fdisk -l /dev/sda` and the content of /etc/fstab....

We have a problem that a lot of VI administrators (especially us young ones) run into - VM Sprawl. In attempting to reduce the chaos and get a much better understanding of our virtual infrastructure I’ve run into a very helpful cmdlet provided in the VI Toolkit. This tutorial is intended for the complete novice. Step 1: Get your system set up for VI Toolkit. Download PowerShell. Download the VI Toolkit....

It started with Eric Siebert’s open letter to VMware making this suggestion: 6. Relax the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certification requirements. I shouldn’t have to take a class to become a VCP, if I have the knowledge and experience to pass the VCP exam that should be enough. Many qualified people can’t afford to take a class just so they can take the test. Amen. Then Dave Lawrence, the VMguy responded, making a few points about the certification requirements....

Since I enabled alarms in VirtualCenter on 10/07/2008 we have encountered 14 seperate false alarms regarding host connectivity. Here’s the alarm: Target: hostname.goes.here Old Status: Green New Status: Red Current value: Host connection state - (State = Not responding) Alarm: Host connection state ([Red State Is Equal To notResponding]) Description: Alarm Host connection state on hostname.goes.here changed from Green to Red Here’s what we went through with support. Sending Diagnostics from VC Found out we are running an unsupported HBA (QLA4010’s are not supported in ESX 3....

We had some storage issues. We still have some storage issues, but it’s getting better. Here’s what we’ve fixed: Overbooked storage Storage Switch Failure Tolerance Adapter Failure Tolerance Overbooked Storage Units The most immediate issue that could be addressed was the storage bloat. This did not require additional hardware. Previously, our storage allocated for VMware was as follows: VMFSLun1 (600 GB) VMFSLun2 (900 GB) All 30 virtual machines the university ran (46 individual virtual hard disks) were running on two LUNs....

Our chargeback policy for virtual machines was not clearly defined. To encourage adoption, the provisioning fee for a virtual machine was $500 regardless of system requirements. In lieu of a host being added and other considerable investments being made hardware, the chargeback policy needed to be revised. Virtual Machines within our matured Virtual Infrastructure cost more to provide but add a considerable amount of value. After a bit of reading at vmMBA and watching BM15 Managing Chargeback with VMware Infrastructure 3 from VMworld 2007 we decided to go with a tiered chargeback method....

Switch and Network Adapter Fault Tolerance Each of the VMware ESX hosts that we had were equipped with dual Network Adapters (NICs). With a typical physical server, two NICs could demonstrate fault tolerance. However, for ESX hosts the dual NIC is not fault tolerant. VMware ESX has three major types of traffic: VMkernel – used for vMotion, which allows host downtime without an interruption of service Service Console – initiates vMotion, serves as the primary venue of managing Virtual Machines...

One of the things I have to do as a Virtual Infrastructure Administrator is evangelize value added with virtual machines. What are my stakeholders going to get out of this? Where’s the value added? Why should we use a virtual machines instead of physical machines? Here’s my explanation of some advantages and value added using VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 from a system deployment standpoint. This post will show a “before and after” view of system deployment....

Welcome to Virtual Andy, a weblog that will discuss challenges with implementing virtualization. I’ll discuss the technical and business challenges that our organization has run into with virtualization. There will be a good mixture of ROI and Excel Spreadsheets with some technical diagrams and scripts. I am relatively new to the virtual world, as I have only been working with VMware products since 05/2008. VCP4 in May 2010.

My post on VMware Consolidated Backup has gotten a decent amount of traffic. If you’re using ESX and not considering VMware Consolidated Backup, this video explains it all.