Tag Archives: VMware

A few initial thoughts about VMware vSphere 5.1

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654375636VMware released vSphere 5.1 this past week, and while there is a large amount of people who have been holding off on upgrading, I have had the pleasure of upgrading both my home lab and the non production lab I use at the office.  Having played with it for a few days now, I wanted to share my first impressions.

 

The upgrade process

imagePrevious vCenter server upgrades simply consisted of just upgrading the server component (and the upgrade and away you go.  Now VMware has introduced two new components to the mix: vCenter Inventory Service & vCenter Single sign-on.  To take a lot of the guess work out of this, VMware provided the “simple installer” to the mix.  This runs through each of the setup applications in the proper order and makes the process very simple and I applaud VMware for this.  A couple things to note:

  • As with all vSphere upgrades, make sure you upgrade vCenter server BEFORE you upgrade any hosts.
  • If you plan on using LDAP authentication, make sure that you are logged in with an LDAP account when you install the single sign-on service.
  • If an upgrade fails during the “simple install”, you will need to continue installation by hand.
  • You won’t need to reboot the vCenter Server machine after the upgrade, the upgrade process will restart all the required services for you.
  • After upgrading the hosts, they did not automatically reconnect to vCenter, and you have to click reconnect on them.

Since I run my vCenter server with an internal database and on a virtual machine, I was able to simply snapshot the VM in the event that something went wrong.  Luckily nothing did and both my upgrades went smooth.

 

vCenter Server 5.1

imageOne of the things I noticed right away was the startup time of vCenter server from boot up.  It is at least 4x longer than vCenter server 5.0 and earlier.  A simple look at task manager during the start up process shows that the java process is eating up most of my CPU, so my guess is this delayed startup is due to the revamped web interface being used.  Needless to say, it threw me for a loop the first time and I thought my upgrade had been borked.  So just keep that in mind that it may take 20 minutes or so for vCenter to come up and be stable.

 

Now when using the standard vSphere client to connect, you will notice things are very similar to older versions.  This is be expected as I believe VMware is trying to make a shift to everyone using the Web Interface (more on this later).  Do keep in mind that the regular vCenter client does not give you access to all of the new features.  One of the big ones to note, is that the new enhanced vMotion can only be found in the web client (again more on this later).

 

vCenter Web Client

imageIt’s clear that VMware has spent a lot of time improving upon the web interface and it shows.  That’s good news for Mac users as they now have a fully functioning method for administering the environment.

 

Right away, you’ll notice a new icon that is not present in the standard vCenter client.  VMware has included vCenter Orchestrator right into the mix and I hope this is a sign of more plugins to be installed.  With that being said, I was disappointed to see that the update manager was not present in the web client, so you must still use the classic vCenter client to perform those updates.

 

One of the things I noticed (and was pointed out by Frank Denneman) was that the new Enhanced vMotion (the one that lets you change both hosts and datastores while the guest is powered on) can ONLY be found in the web client.  I’m not sure this was the best play by VMware, but my guess is that VMware’s long term plan is to make the web client the primary interface for management.

 

Final Thoughts

As with every upgrade, I’m always amazed by the refinement that is introduced.  More and more drawn out processes are being simplified and it seems like VMware really cares about the advanced users as well as those just getting started.  As with any major upgrade, first adopters have some challenges and I wanted to list out a few things that you should be aware of before you upgrade:

As with all my blog posts, I like to hear from the readers.  If you had a good or a bad upgrade experience, let me know in the comments.

Introducing EMC’s VNX Storage Analytics Suite (and Early Access Program)

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imageWith VMworld in full swing, today EMC finalized the announcement of the new VNX Storage Analytics Suite (and you can try it out on the show floor).  You may remember that this was demoed first at EMC World.  As development was nearing completion, you may remember my call for beta testers (I hope you got in and got a chance to try out the technology).  Now we can start getting as excited as the software will be available for general consumption in Q4 of 2012.

 

imageThe VNX Storage Analytics Suite will offer you a an extensive platform to proactively identify bottlenecks, balance workloads and pinpoint the root cause of potential problems around health and performance.  The software is available as a stand alone product as well as integration for VMware’s vCOps Enterprise platform.  Pairing the two together allows you to have a full end-to-end visibility of your entire infrastructure from virtual machine to lun and every point in between.

 

imageFor those of you who are already familiar with vCOps, you will be presented with same interface just with extra options for looking at metrics.  The charts and display is the same.  Green is still good and Red is still bad.  This allows you to quickly visualize the health of your arrays (both block and file) using a simple “Performance-at-a-glance” tab.  Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to attach the problem directly instead of waiting for someone to tell you there is a slowdown in the environment.

 

imageBesides general health information, you can dig down into the specifics of utilization on the array.  In the picture to the right, you’ll be able to see the results (both historically and in real time) of enabling fast cache on your array and what it did to the overall health of your environment.  By focusing on the performance of the array and the pool disks, Fast Cache was able to increase the throughput of the SP while decreasing the strain on the spinning disk storage.

 

By this point you might be saying “Sean, this is so cool, I can’t wait until Q4!  How can I get my hands on this now?”.  Well for those of you who did not participate in the beta (and those of you who did and want to see the results of your feedback) there is good news.   EMC is going to be doing an Early Access program, it won’t cost you a penny, and I’ve got all the details right here!  The bad news is that it’s limited to 100 customers and it’s filling up fast.

 

If you may remember during the beta program I was asking people to email me if they wanted in.  This time I have no control over the process and you must go through your TC.  Before I tell you just how to get in, I need to make sure you have what is required in your environment.  You will need to meet the following prerequisites:

  • vCenter Operations Manager 5.0.1 Enterprise or higher (vApp distribution)
  • EMC VNX series system (Block: R31 OE version 05.31.000.5.720 and higher and VNX OE R32 version 05.32.000.5.006 and higher; File: VNX OE 7.0.35 and higher).

Seems simple enough, right?  Now on how to get in, as I said before you will need to contact your TC or Account Representative.  Have him or her place a Sales Evaluation order in Direct Express using Model # SASCONN-T90 and complete an RPQ.  Again, this is a no cost evaluation period and if you are selected, you will receive further instructions.  At the end of the preview period (which I believe is somewhere in Q4), you will be given the opportunity to purchase a license or uninstall the software.

 

If you are attending the show, please let me know your thoughts about the software in the comments section below.

The NEVMUG Summer Slam is just 1 week away!

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NEVMUG 025It was about 6 months ago that I was writing about the NEVMUG Winter Warmer.  It was my first VMUG and it was great.  For a free conference / user group, it was packed full.  The presentations were great, the sponsors had great break out sessions, and the conversations with attendees were inspiring.

 

Now it’s time to do it all over again, this time in Maine.  On Thursday, July 19th, the Virtualization Technology User Group will be presenting the New England VMware User Group Summer Slam in Brunswick, Maine.  The day will be filled with vast amounts of knowledge transfer via keynotes (including one by Chris Colotti of VMware), break out sessions (which will feature speakers such as Mike Foley, Ed Haletky, and Luigi Danakos), and the sponsors EXPO.  Once it’s all said and done, there will be a giant lobster bake over at Gritty’s.

 

I’ll be walking around, taking photos (and live tweeting a few for those of you who can’t make it), and taking in all that the NEVMUG has to offer.  I’ll also be heading up the night before, so if you want to grab a late drink and some food, hit me up on twitter.  For more information about the NEVMUG Summer Slam, go to the VTUG website.

The NEVMUG is only 2 days away!

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NEVMUG

The New England VMware User Group Winter Warmer is an event I’ve been looking forward to for a while.  I’ve heard a lot of good things from this and the one during the summer over the years.  Unfortunately I’ve never been able to attend one in the past, so this will be my first VMUG ever.

 

So since this is my first VMUG, I’m not quire sure what to expect.  Greg Stuart did an excellent post on what the VMUG is and what to expect from it.  Just like it says in his blog post, I expect to be bombarded with a wealth of knowledge from people who are very passionate about virtualization.  I’m also looking forward to tech demos and hands on labs from the sponsoring vendors that make this event possible.  The event schedule is as follows:

 

  • 08:00 a.m. Registration and Networking
  • 09:00 a.m. What Oracle DBAs need to know about Virtualization
    • Cloud: vCloud Director Deep Dive: Paul Lembo/Chris Colotti
    • Healthcare: ISV Case Study : Scott Carpenter
  • 10:00 a.m. Building Your Cloud Infrastructure with VMware
  • 11:00 a.m. Scott Davis; VMW End User Computing Innovations for 2012
  • 12:00 p.m. Lunch
  • 01:30 p.m. Breakout Session 1
  • 02:00 p.m. Breakout Session 2
  • 03:00 p.m. Breakout Session 3
  • 04:30 p.m. Happy Hour / Giveaways
    • Sponsor Expo is open all day.

 

This looks like a very full day and I expect it to be very busy.  You can register for the event here and keep and eye out for Matt Brender and myself as we may be recording interviews for an “I Tech Therefore I Tool Around” podcast.  See you there!

I Tech Therefore I Tool Around – Episode 02 – The Home Lab

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DSC_0022So our first episode of the “I Tech Therefore I Tool Around” was a smashing success!  Matthew Brender and I had a great time recording and we learned a lot about the process that goes into making a podcast.  The feedback from our listeners was great as well.

 

With that experience and knowledge in hand, we recorded our second podcast.  In this episode, we talk about the why and the how of building a home lab.  I touched upon my home lab during my blog post about the VCP4  Our special guest, Luigi Danakos, talks about his need for a home lab and how he acquired one without spending a dime.  We also touch on several blog posts that inspired our builds.  These are all great resources for building a home lab, so check them out:

 

A slight apology for Luigi as he was still getting over an illness and can be heard coughing every now and then during the recording (I cut out as much as I could).  Be sure to check out Matt’s post on this experience.

 

Click HERE to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!

Or click HERE (or on the icon) to download the MP3 directly!

New version of VMware View Client for iPad released!

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VMwareFor those of you who don’t have update notifications enabled on your iPad, VMware released a new version of their View client for the iPad.  Version 1.2 brings a number of changes (as well as a new look and feel) to the client.  Click here to download the new client and read below for a list of changes.

  • Embedded RSA soft token simplifies login to desktop <=== My favorite!
  • Optimized for VMware View 5 with improved performance
  • Support for iOS 5 including AirPlay
  • Presentation Mode for use with external display and AirPlay
  • Background tasking to move between Windows and iOS apps
  • Updated look and feel
  • Integrated online help
  • Buffered text input for multibyte text entry
  • Now in French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese
  • Bug Fixes

What is Backup Academy?

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Last week I was asked by Rick Vanover to review a new community project he was putting together called Backup Academy.  The site, located at www.backupacademy.com, is dedicated to IT and Storage professionals who are looking to learn the basics of performing backups and recovery of a virtual environment.  This site is product / vendor neutral and is supported by experts in their respective fields.

Backup Academy greets you with an introductory video that is narrated by Rick as well as an introduction to all 5 current professors.  The initial group offers information from the following people:

 

These 5 experts have put together a total of 8 videos that cover a variety of backup and restoration topics:

    • Why virtual machine backups are different?
    • Core technologies used for virtual machine backup
    • Disaster recovery of VMware workloads
    • Backing up enterprise applications: Transaction consistency is key
    • Restore capabilities of VMware backups
    • VMware backup integrity tools
    • Best practices for VMware backups
    • Best practices for Hyper-V backups

Once you have completed these videos, you should have enough knowledge to earn you Backup Academy Certification.  This simple 35 question exam covers the material reviewed in the videos and ensures a basic understanding of backup and restore technologies in a virtual world.  I was able to pass the exam on my first try and I am now Backup Academy Certified.

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So I urge you all to checkout the website and learn as much as you can from the videos.  If you think you have something to offer in return, feel free to apply to be a professor.

The next great virtualization platform

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Two weeks ago, VMware held their annual gathering of all things virtual.  Las Vegas was buzzing with technology from all parts of the globe.  While I did not attend in person, I was there in spirit (or in the cloud as some would put it).  There were many great announcements that came out of the conference.  While many revolved around vSphere 5 and storage technology, there was one particular announcement that caught my attention.

 

On August 30th, VMware announced their new venture called Horizon Mobile.  This new virtualization platform allows for a user to run a separate virtual phone on their android device.  This effectively offers the user both a work phone and a personal phone on the same hardware with just the push of a button.  This benefits both the user and the supporting organization behind it.  IT departments will be allowed to push out corporate policy changes to mobile devices without effecting the personal usage of a phone.  On top of this, a business would not have to incur the extra cost of having to issue a separate device to an employee when all they will need to do is just push out a software update.  The same goes for retrieval after an employee has left the organization as all that is needed is a remote wipe of the business OS instead of trying to track down the hardware.

 

With the rise of the android personal phone, most users do not want to carry a second one just to be able to receive work calls and email.  The two mobile instances will be separated at the core, but allow for some overlap.  In a world where android viruses are starting to become more present, any such mayhem caused to the personal side of a phone will not effect the business side.  On the other side of the spectrum, if the user is working on a business email and gets a personal phone call, a notification will pop up and allow them to answer while not leaving the virtual instance on the phone.

 

HorizonManager03Combined with this is the Horizon Mobile Manager.  This application is the heart and sole of the mobile instance, allowing for application and policy changes to the work side of the phone as well as a health check of the mobile instance.  A separate application catalogue has also been included to ensure that all proper licenses can be handled by the company instead of the user.  VMware has even included the option to push out these changes as an Over-The-Air update to phones connected to a cellular network.

 

This new tech also raises several questions as to how you can have two completely separate phones under one piece of hardware.  The current market for GSM technology ties everything to the SIM card in the phone.  Your mobile number and data usage are all tracked on this.  This means that you cannot get two different phone numbers for the same phone and raises a few questions.

  • How will you be able to answer your work phone calls and your personal ones on the same device without additional hardware?
  • How will corporate and personal voice/date usage be accounted for since most providers do not offer an unlimited plan anymore?
  • Who will be responsible for possible software problems inside the virtual instance?

 

I search around for the answer to these questions and did not come up with much.  However since this announcement was nothing more than a preview of things to come, I assume things will all be ironed out when it launches in a few months.

 

The tech demos I saw also showed a lack of an in handset security feature.  While I might not be so keen on lending someone my work phone to play with or make a call, I would be more likely to lend them my personal phone.  All the demos showed off how a user can switch to the other profile with just the press of a button.  What I’d like to see is some sort of pin code protecting this feature.  If I lend my phone to a friend and they accidentally hit the button, they could start making calls from my work number without even knowing it.

 

SamsungGalaxySIISo “Why is this so important to me?” you may be asking yourself.  As it just so happened, I recently purchased the new Samsung Galaxy SII phone and have been enjoying it.  I’ve overclocked the dual core cpu up to 1.6Ghz while decreasing the voltage to maintain battery life.  This works very well for me with this announcement as Samsung was listed as one of the hardware partners and several press announcements and blogs have indicated that Horizon Mobile is being designed to launch initially on the Galaxy SII.

 

I look forward to the coming months as more information comes out and I hope to be one of the few people who get to launch with this application.

 

For more information on Horizon Mobile and the Horizon Mobile Manager, check out the website http://www.horizonmanager.com/

Countdown to the VCP4

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With the recent announcement of the VCP5, the time to take the VCP4 is running out. On top of that, VMware is currently running a promotion that allows for a free retake if you schedule and take the exam in the month of July (promo codes “VCPTAKE1” and “VCPTAKE2”). This renewed sense of urgency has motivated me to get my certification now. I took the required course back in December, but without having a home lab until a few months ago, I barely had any exposure to VMware products. By taking the VCP4, I will be eligible to take the VCP5 without having to take a training course as long as I complete the exam by February of 2012.

 

The exam:

The VCP4 exam consists of 85 questions that cover the changes version 3 to version 4 as well as a basic understanding of ESX/i 4, vSphere 4, and the related plugins and features. The exam is scored on a scale from 100 – 500 and a 300 is considered a passing score. With that being said, it is my understanding that this exam is no walk in the park. This will test your understanding of exact minimums and maximums, what hardware can be used and how it works, and how the software is installed, configured, and used.

 

Preparing for the exam:

The only thing that VMware requires to take the exam is to take the certified training course. This will provide the minimum amount of exposure that VMware feels is necessary to come with the certification. I took this class with my coworkers Mathew Brender and Tommy Trogden back in December of 2010. Now it is time to study for the exam. Besides the standard resources made available on the VMware website, I picked up 2 books. I am using the “VCP VMware Certified Professional vSphere 4 Study Guide” by Robert Schmidt as well as the “VCP4 Exam Cram: VMware Certified Professional” by Elias Khnaser. Both of these resources come with very detailed overviews of all the topics covered for the exam as well as a plethora of test style questions designed to give you a taste of what to expect. However I’ve found the questions on one book to be much easier than the other so I’m hoping the true questions fall somewhere in the middle.

I can combine this with my home lab to test things I’ve been reading and to redo the labs from the training course. My home lab is more or less based on the Baby Dragon from Phil Jaenke. However I only have one physical host at this time. Luckily, ESX/i can be run virtualized, so I can create a few virtual hosts to test the more advanced vSphere features.

 

Final thoughts before the exam:

At this point I am 10 days away from walking into the testing center. I have completed most of my reading from the two books, I am reviewing test questions, and I am trying to reconfigure the lab to redo some of my old excercises. I am always looking for new practice test questions and there seem to be plenty of them on the web (like the website of Simon Long). If you have any good links, please feel free to leave them in the comments and look for me on twitter after the exam to see how I did.