analyst7's Posts

We have approximately 6 SQL VM's as well as DB2 and Oracle. I realize that every environment is different and workload is relevant but we had to tweak and learn as we grew our virtual environment... See more...
We have approximately 6 SQL VM's as well as DB2 and Oracle. I realize that every environment is different and workload is relevant but we had to tweak and learn as we grew our virtual environment. Just when it looked as if some of our SQL boxes weren't candidates we started looking at the Parallism setting on the SQL servers. Here is a good explanation that describes the setting. http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid1_gci1033746_mem1,00.html This changed the performance drastically. We actually had users remark that performance was better once running on the virtual machine vs. the physical box! Please note that this setting is defintely specific to different applications and does not fix every issue but we have had very good luck with it. Good Luck
There is a known bug in the esxcfg-volume command that was confirmed by a vmware storage engineer that we opened a case with. It will not mount the LUN. They have been working on the case for a w... See more...
There is a known bug in the esxcfg-volume command that was confirmed by a vmware storage engineer that we opened a case with. It will not mount the LUN. They have been working on the case for a week without any resolution. We can successfully unmount the LUN but it will not mount either via the GUI or command line. Fortunately this is happening in our Disaster Recovery datacenter and not in production. Our DR failover scripting is being performed via Powershell. As of right now I am not aware of any Powercli cmdlets that perform this function. I know that the snapshot and lun resignature processes are recognized differently in 4.0 than in 3.5 but I'm looking for specifics. E.g. what files (esx.confg?) or associated services, etc that have changed to help us understand the changes better. I was really hoping that a Vmware Storage Engineer would be able to answer these questions but he is as lost as we are. Any additional info would be very helpful. Thanks for the response.
With ESX 4.0 vmware has made changes pertaining to the functionality of the LVM.DisallowSnapshotLun and LVM.EnableResignature settings that were available in 3.5 under the Advanced Settings. With... See more...
With ESX 4.0 vmware has made changes pertaining to the functionality of the LVM.DisallowSnapshotLun and LVM.EnableResignature settings that were available in 3.5 under the Advanced Settings. With ESX 4.0 you are asked if you want to allow these settings when adding a LUN that is a snapshot. You can however edit these settings at the host level in the esx.conf file to make this a "global" setting at the host level. This can be done in ESXi as well using "unsupported" mode. Our issue is that we utilize NetApp Snapmirror and Flexclone technology to provision test LUN's to our DR Vmware environment for testing purposes. We have the entire process scripted to provide failover to the DR site for both a testing environment (using Flexclones) and for an actual "takeover" on the DR SAN in the event of an actualy disaster. Think of it as SRM without the GUI only the failback process is a more streamlined process. With these new settings we've discovered several things. A. Simply changing the LVM.DisallowSnapShotLun = 0 and rescanning the ESX host does not "mount" then snapshot LUNs. The storage adapter recognizes the LUN but the Host does not mount the LUN. However, rebooting the ESX host will mount the LUN properly. B. Another observation we found is that even using the GUI to apply these setting did not work. It returned an error "Cannot configure Host Setting". We have opened a case with Vmware and they have observed these behaviors and they do not have a resolution as of yet. My question is first of all has anyone else ran across this issue and secondly, is there a way to flush the memory on the ESX host by restarting a service? Vmware has stated that this information is being stored in the host memory yet running /sbin/services.sh restart does not resolve the issue. We have to reboot the host everytime we fail these LUN's over and then fail them back. Even after performing a rescan. Any information would be helpful.
Besides I can't run 64-bit and I wanted to make this backup machine a multi purpose Windows 2008 64-bit, so now I can, and use my previous machine for backups. I thought that VCB and SAN ba... See more...
Besides I can't run 64-bit and I wanted to make this backup machine a multi purpose Windows 2008 64-bit, so now I can, and use my previous machine for backups. I thought that VCB and SAN backup would make things faster, but it's just more trouble than its worth. I was advised at VM World this was the 'preferred' solution, but I don't see the benefit, other than taking load off the ESX servers.. but it's only network traffic, not a big deal and it's not really noticeable. Thanks for the help, but I am just going to go back to the other method.. and with vRanger I can't get a status of the backup. All I can see is success, but no time, no details unless I pull up the report. If I use LAN backup I can write my VM notes again with the backup details, and I can see at a glance when they were last backed up, I like that MUCH better One thing to remember with LAN based backups is that you create more than network traffic on the ESX host. Most important is that you create considerable CPU and memory overhead at the console level. Depending upon the number of CPU's in your host and whether or not you have any VM's on that box that have multiple Virtulal CPU's you could possibly impact virtual machine performance as well during a LAN backup.
Yes. By default you have to enable support on a host that has more than 64GB RAM. To change the following setting on the host under the Configuration Tab. Advanced Settings > VMKernel > ... See more...
Yes. By default you have to enable support on a host that has more than 64GB RAM. To change the following setting on the host under the Configuration Tab. Advanced Settings > VMKernel > Boot > DESELECT "VMkernel.Boot.force.36BitMTRRMask" and reboot your host and you will be good to go. Hope this helps.
We just bascially let the SAN scrubs and maintenance take care of the LUN's themselves and then defrag the virtual machine from within the guest as mentioned. I've never experienced any issues ... See more...
We just bascially let the SAN scrubs and maintenance take care of the LUN's themselves and then defrag the virtual machine from within the guest as mentioned. I've never experienced any issues with fragmentation at the LUN level that I was aware of. I'll have to take a look at the product you mentioned. Good luck.
9:36:54am up 40 min, 60 worlds; MEM overcommit avg: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 PMEM /MB: 131066 total: 800 cos, 66544 vmk, 1 other, 63720 free VMKMEM/MB: 63525 managed: 3811 minfree, ... See more...
9:36:54am up 40 min, 60 worlds; MEM overcommit avg: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 PMEM /MB: 131066 total: 800 cos, 66544 vmk, 1 other, 63720 free VMKMEM/MB: 63525 managed: 3811 minfree, 3816 rsvd, 59507 ursvd, high state COSMEM/MB: 356 free: 2996 swap_t, 2996 swap_f: 0.00 r/s, 0.00 w/s PSHARE/MB: 1 shared, 1 common: 0 saving SWAP /MB: 0 curr, 0 target: 0.00 r/s, 0.00 w/s MEMCTL/MB: 0 curr, 0 target, 0 max 1 1 idle 16 1534.64 1526.52 0.00 0.00 101.48 GID NAME NWLD MEMSZ SZTGT TCHD %ACTV %ACTVS %ACTVF %A 15 vmware-vmkauthd 1 5.48 5.48 1.59 0 0 0
We just create a Scheduled Task to run defrags on our Windows virtual machines. Here's the Syntax for defragmenting the C: drive. Change the drive letter accordingly . Hope this helps. "C... See more...
We just create a Scheduled Task to run defrags on our Windows virtual machines. Here's the Syntax for defragmenting the C: drive. Change the drive letter accordingly . Hope this helps. "C:\WINDOWS\system32\defrag.exe c: -f"
I just built a new quad proc r900 Dell with 128 GB RAM for our vm environment. Upon bootup it shows that it's using 66GB RAM. This host does not even have any virtual machines running on it?? A... See more...
I just built a new quad proc r900 Dell with 128 GB RAM for our vm environment. Upon bootup it shows that it's using 66GB RAM. This host does not even have any virtual machines running on it?? Any clues on what would cause this issue? Any help or ideas would be much appreciated! Thanks,
I want my script to ignore a VMFS3 partition on Scripted Installations in the event the SAN cables are accidently left connected. Does anyone know the command for this within the kix script? Al... See more...
I want my script to ignore a VMFS3 partition on Scripted Installations in the event the SAN cables are accidently left connected. Does anyone know the command for this within the kix script? Also...I am taking for granted that it would be placed before the Partitioning portion of the script. Is that correct? If not where would it be located? Any help would be much appreciated. Thx
I do not want my scripted installation to install on a VMFS3 partition in case the SAN cables are not disconnected by accident thus messing up a LUN. Can someone tell me what command I w... See more...
I do not want my scripted installation to install on a VMFS3 partition in case the SAN cables are not disconnected by accident thus messing up a LUN. Can someone tell me what command I would enter in my KS script and before what section? Ex. before the partitioning portion?
Vm Admin role is assigned and the Browse Datastore is selected. You also need Device Connection selected which is done by default under Virtual Machine>Interaction>Device Connection. Whil... See more...
Vm Admin role is assigned and the Browse Datastore is selected. You also need Device Connection selected which is done by default under Virtual Machine>Interaction>Device Connection. While all of these are selected by default it still will not allow users to browse the Datastore ISO file when accessing Editing Settings>CD/DVD Drive. If I create a local user on the Virtual Center server I am able to assign Virtual Machine Power User and they are able to browse fine. Power User is the minimum privledge needed to perform this function. Only a top level Administrator has the permissions needed to browse. As a temporary fix I will create a local user for the few adminstrators that need this function and assign accordingly. I have a case open with Vmware and waiting to hear a response. I will post any results that I find. Thank you for your reply.
On vmfs luns that reside on our SAN
I have just upgraded to Virtual Center 2.5. I have users that cannot browse to the ISO datastore under the CD/DVD configuration without giving them Administrator access at the DataCenter level.... See more...
I have just upgraded to Virtual Center 2.5. I have users that cannot browse to the ISO datastore under the CD/DVD configuration without giving them Administrator access at the DataCenter level. They currently have Virtual Machine Administrator permissions and I have even tried giving them Administrator access at this level without success. It has to be at the top level in order for them to browse the datastore. I've read that this is a known bug but, I have not found a resolution that works. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
I'm running Vi3 3.01. What are the best practices for defragmenting the following: LUNS - VMFS-3 volumes specific commands or rely on SAN vendor defrag tools? .vmdk files - (is vmware-vd... See more...
I'm running Vi3 3.01. What are the best practices for defragmenting the following: LUNS - VMFS-3 volumes specific commands or rely on SAN vendor defrag tools? .vmdk files - (is vmware-vdiskmanager still applicable?) Windows virtual machines - Run Defrag within the windows hosts?
I found that this was only happening for me on about 3 virtual machines. All three were multiple disk machines that were migrated from esx 2.5.3. They also all had Undoable mode enabled on them a... See more...
I found that this was only happening for me on about 3 virtual machines. All three were multiple disk machines that were migrated from esx 2.5.3. They also all had Undoable mode enabled on them at one time in the 2.5x world which I had to convert to "persistent" before migrating to a vmfs3 lun for the vi3 upgrade. To eliminate the issue of the Consolidated Helper snapshot being created and giving me grief on the vi3 side of things I needed to edit the .vmx file and remove "persistent" from the scsi0:(disk).mode = "persistent". I simply left it with empty quotes (""). I have not had any issues on these machines since.
Environment: I'm migrating from 2.5.3 > vi3.01 Due to issues with esxRanger after upgrading the database I've decided to create a new database from scratch on the 3.01 side since I only have ... See more...
Environment: I'm migrating from 2.5.3 > vi3.01 Due to issues with esxRanger after upgrading the database I've decided to create a new database from scratch on the 3.01 side since I only have 5 hosts and 12 Virtual Machine Groups on the 2.5.x environment. I then Removed the 2.5.x host from the 2.5.x database and added it as a new host on the vi3 environment. Under Host and Clusters I want to create a New Folder to match the Virtual Machine Groups folders I had in 2.5.x. Once I create a new folder on vi3 I am unable to move a virtual machine from either the 2.5.3 or vi3 host to these new folders?? I've upgrade the virtual hardware as well as updated the vmtools and still no luck?? What am I missing? Any help would be much appreciated.