This week I had to upgrade our Virtual Center Server from version 2.0.2 to 2.0.2 Update 3. The upgrade was schedule to occur during the day and it was coordinated between the Infrastructure group and the DBA group. The plan was:

• 1. Disable the SiteScope alerts for the the Virtual Center Server
• 2. Stop the Virtual Center and all the associated services
• 3. Perform a full backup of the Data Base and the OS
• 4. Upgrade the License Server
• 5. Upgrade the Virtual Center Server from version 2.0.2 to 2.0.2 Update 3
• 6. Update all the Virtual Infrastructure Clients
• 7. Double check everything

I followed the mentioned steps and there were not any apparent problems; but when I tried to access the Web interface default page, there were no links on it!

Ok, the problem seemed to be the page code, maybe a directory that was not properly updated, let us see what Google has to say about it I thought: "virtual center update 3 web interface problem" and the first entry pointed me to "Problems with WebAccess after VirtualCenter 2.0.2 Update 1 upgrade". Mmmh, the link talked abut a problem with the Update 1, the same I was having actually, but this was Update 3... Aha! The issue was still unresolved!

Long story short, after following the posted the instructions, the problem went away.

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

Right now I am working on a VMware / Security project that will allow us to partially virtualize our physical Anti-Spam and Management Servers. On an average, we process 1.2 million of incoming e-mails per day through 1 Anti-Spam Server that is behind our firewalls. The new plan is to have 2 Anti-Spam Servers to handle the load plus 1 Management Server.

In the new world, both Anti-Spam Servers will be active and share 50% of the load each. One of them is going to be a Virtual Machine and the second one a physical server; the Management Server will also be virtualized. If one of the Anti-Spam Servers fail, the second server will process all the e-mail and if the management server fails we will restore a copy of the Virtual Machine (some downtime here is acceptable since incoming e-mail will continue to be processed).

The product selected for the Anti-Spam Servers was Symantec Mail Security for SMTP and VMware Infrastructure Enterprise Edition for the Virtualization platform. In a couple of weeks the project will be fully implemented, so I am going to update this post with the results of the migration and a Visio diagram of the implementation.

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

Besides knowing how to manage the Hypervisor, administrators are expected to interact with at least the storage, backup and networking teams in order to provide a complete virtualization solution. Because of that, I would like to recommend you the following links since they talk about the interaction between the different players in a virtualization project, network design with Cisco devices and best practices:

1. Server Virtualization: Network Implications and Best Practices by Maurizio Portolani

2. Challenges integrating VMware into Cisco networks by Colin McNamara

Enjoy!

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

These are the articles / links for the past week:

1. How-to Sysprep in Windows 2008 via Brian Desmon's Blog
2. CoreConfigurator for Windows Server 2008 via Guy Teverovsky
3. VMware HA Vs Microsoft Cluster Server via IT 2.0
4. Raghu Raghuram on the hypervisor and the next big opportunity via VMTN Blog
5. Looking to Leadership for Agile Inspiration via Gantthead

Enjoy!

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

Here is the list of links and articles for this week:

1. Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator via Microsoft Technet
2. A Really Useful List of Rundll32 commands for Windows via Gus Pinto MVP Blog
3. Windows Server 2008 Israeli Launch Event & Presentations by Daniel Petri via Petri IT Knowledgebase
4. Remaindered links for March21, 2008 via VMTN Blog
5. The CareGroup Network Outage via Life as a Healthcare CIO

Enjoy!

Posted by Gabriel Maciel