RaZaKKaZaR's Posts

Hello Team, The install and config experience is great and seamless so far.  Log Insight has been very easy to deploy.  I just have one request: Is it possible that the team can include a f... See more...
Hello Team, The install and config experience is great and seamless so far.  Log Insight has been very easy to deploy.  I just have one request: Is it possible that the team can include a flag for configure-esxi to skip hosts that are offline\disconnected?  I didn't see one when I did my initial runs, but it would help speed up execution for users. Thanks, Trevor @VMTrooper www.VMTrooper.com
Hello All, Regarding the question of why to use the Cisco-customized vSphere 5.x installation ISO, they contain the versions of HW drivers that Cisco Engineering teams verified with that versi... See more...
Hello All, Regarding the question of why to use the Cisco-customized vSphere 5.x installation ISO, they contain the versions of HW drivers that Cisco Engineering teams verified with that version of vSphere. This is especially important for your NIC (enic) and HBA (fnic) cards as you may not get the best performance with the drivers on the standard VMware ISO. It is always best to check the UCS Interoperability Matrix to verify which driver versions you should be on. If you want to check which driver version your vSphere server is on, use the following command: ~ # vmkload_mod -s enic | grep Version (change to fnic for your vHBA) If you are on the wrong driver version, the correct version can also be downloaded from VMware under Driver CDs Regards, Trevor www.VMTrooper.com
Hello Jit, I agree with the other poster: 8 GB is barely enough to get a decent-sized environment going and test out all functionality. If you will build a 100% virtual environment, conside... See more...
Hello Jit, I agree with the other poster: 8 GB is barely enough to get a decent-sized environment going and test out all functionality. If you will build a 100% virtual environment, consider getting an SSD with at least 200 GB of storage (OCZ Vertex 2\3 or Intel 320\510 depending on which version of SATA your laptop supports) to really get decent performance.  A regular HDD is ok if you will be doing individual physical nodes, but a VMware Workstation 8 100% virtual environment will crawl. When you get your feet wet with Openfiler, consider trying out EMC Virtual Storage Appliances (VSAs) like the Uber models built by Nick Weaver: Uber Celerra and Uber VNX and open an EMC PowerLink account to download the required utilities to integrate their management into vCenter.  There are many guides, blog posts, and YouTube videos on how to use them.  The Uber Celerra is more mature and can even be used to setup replication and test out VMware's Site Recovery Manager (SRM). Enjoy
When I changed it in the web management interface, it committed the change.  You may need to logout and login again to the command line to see the change, though. Here is the management addres... See more...
When I changed it in the web management interface, it committed the change.  You may need to logout and login again to the command line to see the change, though. Here is the management address: https://<vMA IP>:5480/
Yes, the VM still needs to be shutdown first.
Hello Samuk, Make sure to keep an eye on backup throughput with your setup. It is generally best practice to have 2 HBAs in the Backup Server (one for disk access and one for backup device ... See more...
Hello Samuk, Make sure to keep an eye on backup throughput with your setup. It is generally best practice to have 2 HBAs in the Backup Server (one for disk access and one for backup device access). If you find that you are not meeting your backup windows, you may want consider adding the second card to separate the traffic. -Trevor
Also, the VDDK API, in the VADP, supports ESX 3.5.  So, you can begin your backup performance testing with your VI3 servers. VDDK's main advantage over VCB is that you do not need to allocate ... See more...
Also, the VDDK API, in the VADP, supports ESX 3.5.  So, you can begin your backup performance testing with your VI3 servers. VDDK's main advantage over VCB is that you do not need to allocate local storage on your Proxy Server to temporarily host the VMs during the backup. Not such a big deal if you're backing up VMs in Serial.  However, if you do any multi-streaming, you'll need significant free space on the Proxy to perform your VCB backups successfully.
Hey Brian, FYI, any time you make a change to those Service Console config files, or any UNIX\Linux config files in general, make sure to restart the process using syntax like what Troy listed... See more...
Hey Brian, FYI, any time you make a change to those Service Console config files, or any UNIX\Linux config files in general, make sure to restart the process using syntax like what Troy listed earlier.
Hello smackthat, I use the VI3 Guide for User Roles when trying to create granular permissions for my users:  http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_vc_roles.pdf A lot of the information still appli... See more...
Hello smackthat, I use the VI3 Guide for User Roles when trying to create granular permissions for my users:  http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_vc_roles.pdf A lot of the information still applies to vSphere. I have posted a vid and follow-up article on my vCenter User Role experiments at my blog, as well, if you want to check it out: http://vmtrooper.com/?p=23 http://vmtrooper.com/?p=46 If you want any assistance with specific permissions, post follow-up responses, and I'll be glad to research. Depending on the type of permission you want to set, certain rights may need to be set at the Datacenter, Cluster, Datastore, and\or Host Levels. Regards, Trevor
Hello Kevin, There are no drawbacks to thin provisioning the vMA.  It should not grow dramatically size over time.  Even if it does, you set the upper threshold on disk size anyway. That is... See more...
Hello Kevin, There are no drawbacks to thin provisioning the vMA.  It should not grow dramatically size over time.  Even if it does, you set the upper threshold on disk size anyway. That is the way I have it setup in my environment.  I barely thick-provision VMs anymore. Regards, Trevor
Hello Albert, I have not used Orchestrator yet, but I know Lab Manager was designed for the purpose to give Development and QA Teams the ability to quickly speed up test environments without n... See more...
Hello Albert, I have not used Orchestrator yet, but I know Lab Manager was designed for the purpose to give Development and QA Teams the ability to quickly speed up test environments without needing significant security access in vCenter. Have you tried looking at that product? Regards, Trevor
Do you have a secondary vSphere environment at the DR site as well? If the DR storage is in the same building, I guess that question is a moot point, but I wanted to make sure.
Hello Giuseppe, I have two templates that both have 2 NICs, and neither of them have problems after deployment. What are your port binding and VLAN settings? I will try to replicate your p... See more...
Hello Giuseppe, I have two templates that both have 2 NICs, and neither of them have problems after deployment. What are your port binding and VLAN settings? I will try to replicate your problem once I get to my vSphere environment.
@mcowger  Thanks for bringing that up.  I assumed this was a home lab.
If you are not RAIDing your disks, that would be my first suggestion.  Otherwise, consider in investing in a reasonably-priced shared storage solution like the iomega gear and make backup copies ... See more...
If you are not RAIDing your disks, that would be my first suggestion.  Otherwise, consider in investing in a reasonably-priced shared storage solution like the iomega gear and make backup copies of your VMs that will be accessible by both servers. Otherwise, consider backing up to disk using a tool like Veeam.  They are granting NFR licenses to VCPs and vExperts.  I believe the tool requires shared storage as well, but you can try for yourself and see if it can work with your setup. http://www.veeam.com/nfr/free-nfr-license
Hello  Giuseppe, When you deploy the template, do you make sure to customize the NIC settings? or are you accepting the defaults? The next time you deploy the template, try customizing the ... See more...
Hello  Giuseppe, When you deploy the template, do you make sure to customize the NIC settings? or are you accepting the defaults? The next time you deploy the template, try customizing the network settings and set both NICs to DHCP. Then, after the template finishes deployment, go back and change the network settings to what you really want.
Hello BonnoB, No subdirectory is necessary. It is best to obtain the files from the deploy.cab from the CD or ISO that you used to install the OS on those VMs. Just double-click on the Dep... See more...
Hello BonnoB, No subdirectory is necessary. It is best to obtain the files from the deploy.cab from the CD or ISO that you used to install the OS on those VMs. Just double-click on the Deploy.cab file and copy the file contents to the appropriate sub-folder on your vCenter server. Regards, Trevor ===================================================================================== If any of my responses have been helpful in any way, please rate accordinly. Thank you and Happy VM'ing! :smileygrin:
Hello William, Yes, there is a local console mode that has a limited command set, but I believe you have to be at the physical box to access it. Usually, the VM Tech Support Team steps you th... See more...
Hello William, Yes, there is a local console mode that has a limited command set, but I believe you have to be at the physical box to access it. Usually, the VM Tech Support Team steps you through how to access it if you need to. The vMA is a Virtual Appliance that can be run either on an ESXi Server that you can still manage or on VMware Workstation 7. You can download it for free from VMware's Virtual Appliance site. As long as you have network connectivity to the boxes, it should be able to connect for you to run commands remotely on those servers. Regards, Trevor ===================================================================================== If any of my responses have been helpful in any way, please rate accordinly. Thank you and Happy VM'ing! :smileygrin:
Hello William, Have you considered downloading the vMA for free from VMware's Virtual Appliance site to remotely administer the servers? As long as you can ping the servers, vMA should be abl... See more...
Hello William, Have you considered downloading the vMA for free from VMware's Virtual Appliance site to remotely administer the servers? As long as you can ping the servers, vMA should be able to connect to them to execute commands. Alternatively, you could build a Linux VM and install the vCLI component to perform the same remote administration commands. Telnet will not work on the ESXi servers. Regards, Trevor ===================================================================================== If any of my responses have been helpful in any way, please rate accordinly. Thank you and Happy VM'ing! :smileygrin:
Hmm...In that case, consider NIC teaming if performance is noticeably unacceptable with the single network card setups. Unfortunately, it will be hard to anticipate performance impact without kn... See more...
Hmm...In that case, consider NIC teaming if performance is noticeably unacceptable with the single network card setups. Unfortunately, it will be hard to anticipate performance impact without knowing a bit more about your network details. Try running tests with your current setup and observing the Network Usage-related graphs in vCenter to estimate how performance would be impacted. For example, disk I\O might take the biggest hit on your network since you are using iSCSI storage. In such a case, if you are using multiple vSwitches, consider having two physical NICs attached to the Storage vSwitch in a teaming configuration. Regards, Trevor ===================================================================================== If any of my responses have been helpful in any way, please rate accordinly. Thank you and Happy VM'ing! :smileygrin: