I have installed a Cisco Virtual Appliance (.OVA format) and the file is Cisco_Prime_LMS_4_1_500.ova (5.125.238.272 bytes)
First attempt failed
I installed it on our VMware farm consisting of 7-hosts with ESXi, 4.1.0, build 502767.
Our licensed features on the ESXi hosts in the VMware farm are:
Product: vSphere 4 Enterprise Licensed for 2 physical CPUs (1-6 cores per CPU)
License Key: *****-*****-*****-*****-*****-*****-*****
Expires: Never
Product Features:
Up to 256 GB of memory
Up to 4-way virtual SMP
vCenter agent for ESX Server
vStorage APIs
VMsafe
dvFilter
VMware HA
Hot-Pluggable virtual HW
vMotion
VMware FT
Data Recovery
vShield Zones
VMware DRS
Storage vMotion
MPIO / Third-Party Multi-Pathing
Remote virtual Serial Port Concentrator
What fails?
Deployment of the OVA template works fine.
But when I start the Virtual Appliance I get the message (I a dialog box) “Insufficient resources to satisfy configured failover level for HA”
By the way: I dont think it has any thing to do with the date: Today is Friday 13th. *LOL*
What works?
I have a standalone ESXi, 4.1.0, build 502767 which has limited features:
When I move the Virtual Appliance to the stand alone ESXi 4.1 host it starts and runs fine.
Our licensed features on the ESXi 4.1 stand alone hosts are:
Product: vSphere 4 Enterprise Licensed for 2 physical CPUs (1-6 cores per CPU)
License Key: *****-*****-*****-*****-*****-*****--*****
Expires: Never
Product Features:
Up to 256 GB of memory
Up to 4-way virtual SMP
New Approach
We upgraded the standalone ESXi, 4.1.0 to ESX1 5.0.0, build 469512. As we run this in 60-days evaluation mode, all features are enabled including vSphere HA. Of course there are no vMotion as this is a stand alone ESXi host.
As with the 4.1 ‘limited featured’ ESXi host, the Virtual Appliance starts up without any problems on the 5.0 ESXi host with full features.
Here is the read out of the 5.0 features in Evaluation Mode:
Product: Evaluation Mode
Expires: 12-06-2012
Product Features:
Up to 32-way virtual SMP
vCenter agent for VMware host
vStorage APIs
VMsafe
vSphere HA
Hot-Pluggable virtual HW
vMotion
vSphere FT
vSphere Data Recovery
vShield Zones
vSphere DRS
Storage vMotion
MPIO / Third-Party Multi-Pathing
vSphere Distributed Switch
Host profiles
Remote virtual Serial Port Concentrator
Storage I/O Control
Direct Path vMotion
vAAI
Shared Smart Card Reader
Storage DRS
Profile-Driven Storage
vMotion Metro
vSphere Auto Deploy
vSphere View Accelerator
The question
What is the problem with running the Cisco Virtual Appliance on the VMware farm?
Kind Regards
MBorik, Denmark
Hi dcamarotto
Thanks for the interest for my problem. I did what you suggested but it did not help.
The solution lies in another place in the VMware cluster setup. I got this information via a very skilled person Friday 27th of April.
When I right click on the VMware cluster (with the 7 ESX hosts) I select Edit settings | VMware HA
In the Admission Control section I can disable “Power on VMs that violate availability constraints”.
As you can see in the screenshot the setting was Enabled and the Admission Control Policy was “Host failures cluster tolerates” = 1
The conclusion is that we have too few resources in our VMware cluster. There are not enough resources to make a failover with the amount of VMs running at the present. The policy states that should one of the seven ESX host fail, VMs must be able to share only six ESX hosts. We have been discussing adding two more ESX hosts for some time now. This might be the evidence of a sound investment in a license extension.
After I disabled the Admission Control. My Virtual Appliance started without fuss.
I consider the case solved.
Kind regards
M Borik, Denmark