"We know that ESX can handle a large number of IOPS, but we set out to see just how far we could push it. We went to EMC and got as many storage arrays as we could lay our hands on. We picked a realistic workload of 100% random with a 50/50 read/write mix and 8KB block size and then fired it up. We kept pushing more and more IOPS and managed to get up to 100,000 IOPS before running out of storage array bandwidth. And we still had plenty of headroom to spare with ESX!"

Read the full article here

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

This VMware KB has identified the following best practices when upgrading to VirtualCenter 2.5 and ESX Server 3.5:

1. Backup your VirtualCenter database. VMware recommends detaching the database and copying it somewhere safe.
2. Grant the System DSN user of the VirtualCenter Database db_owner privileges on the MSDB database as well as the VirtualCenter database. 
3. Ensure that your ODBC System DSN is using the proper driver. You must have a SQL Server driver if your database is SQL 2000, and SQL Native Client driver if using SQL 2005.
4. If your ESX Server host is in a DRS or VMware High Availability (HA) Cluster remove it from the cluster so no virtual machines migrate to the ESX Server host.
5. If possible VMotion all virtual machines off the host to be upgraded. If not, power them down gracefully and power off the ESX Server host.
6. Log in to your VirtualCenter server with a local Administrator account to run the installation, do not use a domain administrator.
7. Perform the upgrade to VirtualCenter to 2.5 and ensure all your data is visible in VirtualCenter 2.5 after the upgrade.
8. Ensure no processes are running that conflict with the ports that VirtualCenter uses, such as IIS.
9. If there is a SAN connected to your ESX Server host detach the SAN before continuing with the upgrade.
10. Confirm that all the virtual machines are now migrated from the ESX Server host or powered down, and that ESX Server host is no longer part of an VMware HA or DRS cluster.
11. Download the newest version of the ESX operating system ISO image and burn it to CD.
12. Place the CD in the CD-ROM drive of the host and boot from the CD.
13. Install ESX Server 3.5 with a fresh install or upgrade.

You can find the VMware KB 1003889 article here.

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

"The Microsoft Integrated Virtualization ROI Tool was developed independently by ex-Gartner TCO/ROI experts at leading ROI tool developer Alinean, Inc. This ROI tool helps partners and customers examine current production server, development/QA lab, desktop and application virtualization opportunities, quantifying the potential savings, service level and agility benefits, investment and ROI for implementing Microsoft Integrated Virtualization solutions.
 
The tool collects specific information about current infrastructure costs and opportunities for improvement, then uses research by Alinean to project potential costs and benefits for various optimization strategies using the Microsoft Integrated Virtualization solutions. All research was collected from the Alinean ValueBase™ of IT spending metrics, and Microsoft product and pricing experts to reflect typical costs and savings for similar company type and size."

You can access the tool here.

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

Here are the links and articles for the past week:

• 1. Virtualization tools, advice focus on ROI by Server Virtualization Blog
• 2. More on Transient VMs via vmMBA
• 3. Why Retailers are Adopting Virtualization via Microsoft
• 4. Virtualization creates shift in IT job market via SearchServerVirtualization
• 5. Is hypervisor-based virtualization doomed? via SearchServerVirtualization

Enjoy!

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

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 new features of the Beta 2:

Change history View an annotated history of actions on a configuration.
Guest customization This feature replaces the VM Personalizer utility.
Service template Stage Manager administrators can set up and change a default service template, used for creation of new services
Partial deployment of configurations Deploy portions of a configuration rather than the whole configuration.
Demote configuration Demote a configuration to any prior stage.

Product Web Page

Download the Program here

Posted by Gabriel Maciel