cajx's Posts

I've done around a dozen p2v type migrations using VMware's converter on servers with few problems. I usually use the stand alone converter from my desk. When I try to use it on this workstatio... See more...
I've done around a dozen p2v type migrations using VMware's converter on servers with few problems. I usually use the stand alone converter from my desk. When I try to use it on this workstation PC it won't let me b/c of some Window's rights problem (workgroup remote install of a service won't work, thanks MS). So i install the converter on the box itself, and do a conversion.Twice now the conversion appears to work, but twice the VM hangs on boot up with a black screen and a non-moving cursor. The only differences I can think besides what I've mentioned is that the PC itself doesn't have the sysprep files, etc. But it shouldn't need that if we aren't redoing the SID, etc. right?
Just to keep this documented: After opening the ticket with HP, they suggested updating all firmware. We did so, it ran a week or two without dying. We have also done all updates available... See more...
Just to keep this documented: After opening the ticket with HP, they suggested updating all firmware. We did so, it ran a week or two without dying. We have also done all updates available for ESXi 4 days ago. Yesterday the server died again with the same type of symptoms. We noticed the BIOS clock was off about 8 hours... we corrected it in the wild hopes that it would somehow hope. I'm still at a loss. Going to reopen the ticket with HP.
I was thinking of upgrading some of mine, thanks for the heads up.
We've had this box crash 3 times on us. I found this error with it not being able to talk to its local hard drives. If you look at the drives physically, there is no activity. Anybody see this?... See more...
We've had this box crash 3 times on us. I found this error with it not being able to talk to its local hard drives. If you look at the drives physically, there is no activity. Anybody see this? Any suspects? We're opening a ticket with HP... my first guess is since this model is so new we'll have to do yet another firmware update on something. Lost access to volume 4a1bc018-845d0ff4-f7db-00237de1b89e (cesxi1-A) due to connectivity issues. Recovery attempt is in progress and outcome will be reported shortly. info 10/6/2009 10:00:31 AM
My main concern is performance. I would rather go thin if I knew performance was 99% of thick. I hear different things depending on who I talk to, but I do find it odd that VMware won't let you... See more...
My main concern is performance. I would rather go thin if I knew performance was 99% of thick. I hear different things depending on who I talk to, but I do find it odd that VMware won't let you convert to thick. Although I have Platespin and they are telling me(not tested) that it will only provision thick. So again, it just seems like there is no agreement as to the perfect answer. We are running a couple of servers thin, and they seem fine but I haven't done any hard metrics... and my understanding from some VMware classes is that thin is great at first but the more files you add the more fragmented you get. But Andre is saying different (thin good), VMware itself seems to say thin is good, and a NetApp guy tells me the NetApp/IBM nseries storage does auto-defrag all day long anyway. So now I'm mostly convinced but would like to see numbers and or have Platespin agree to be really confortable. To further confuse me, i read this about thin provisioning: "It achieves this with zero performance impact" from VMware's http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/thin_provisioning_datasheet.pdf And the opposite from here (although they say it's not as bad of a hit as on VMware workstation of course): http://xtravirt.com/xd10016
I am so glad I posted in this forum. Thanks a ton!
Really?! I thought thin provisioning was bad because of performance problems and fragmentation.
We are on an IBM nseries 6040 (same as NetApp FAS 3040) and using NFS. With the converter, it always makes it thin provisioned despite if I pick fat (i think they call it flat) or thin. Even with... See more...
We are on an IBM nseries 6040 (same as NetApp FAS 3040) and using NFS. With the converter, it always makes it thin provisioned despite if I pick fat (i think they call it flat) or thin. Even within vCenter, when I try to convert the storage disks to fat/flat from thin, it doesn't work. Anybody else see this?
Thanks, that makes sense. For a quick fix, I used the unsupported mode stuff and went to the logs directory Andre had proposed. Nice site for ESXi hidden console/ unsupported mode: UPDA... See more...
Thanks, that makes sense. For a quick fix, I used the unsupported mode stuff and went to the logs directory Andre had proposed. Nice site for ESXi hidden console/ unsupported mode: UPDATE on things in general: We started getting never ending alarms again: VMware vCenter - Alarm Health status changed alarm vCenter.CCBTRNT.COM (vCenter) status changed from yellow to green I also finally got a BladeCenter alert that there was a communication error on one of the blades. Now I'm thinking it's a hardware problem, and VMware is more sensitive than the BladeCenter... if that's possible. It's an IBM H-Chassis with their newest blades. Maybe too new. About to open a ticket with IBM and see what they say.
I'm getting the impression there is no easy way to get to logs in ESXi without having some special log server that catches them all. Am I right? see http://communities.vmware.com/th... See more...
I'm getting the impression there is no easy way to get to logs in ESXi without having some special log server that catches them all. Am I right? see http://communities.vmware.com/thread/218986
Cutting to the chase, how do I know if HA is happy and healthy for all hosts in a cluster? We are very new to ESX/ESXi/vCenter. We have licensing for HA, etc. Most things are fine, but w... See more...
Cutting to the chase, how do I know if HA is happy and healthy for all hosts in a cluster? We are very new to ESX/ESXi/vCenter. We have licensing for HA, etc. Most things are fine, but we had a problem with the vCenter box recently and it hung (the vCenter box is running on an ESXi server unrelated to our production cluster. The problem was caused by... you guessed it, NTP problems... we had NTP working fine on the ESXi hosts in our production cluster, but the vCenter box is completely separate physically and virtually from our HA production cluster and we neglected it). After rebooting the vCenter host, it came up and started spitting all kinds of heartbeat errors for all hosts and a couple of HA errors for one host. Couldn't find anything wrong b/c everything seems to be working fine. So I rebooted the vCenter VM, and when it came up 10 minutes ago it seemed happy. No more alarms/errors still at this point in time. So I'm expecting errors to start popping up any minute, but if there are none, how can I tell if HA is happy?
On my PC it's the stand alone. The one in vCenter is the plugin. I was recently told that the standalone simply has more features and so it is definitely different than the plug in. So in that ca... See more...
On my PC it's the stand alone. The one in vCenter is the plugin. I was recently told that the standalone simply has more features and so it is definitely different than the plug in. So in that case I'll just use it b/c I need the option to power down the original box after the p2v conversion.
I have a stand alone converter on my PC that works great. We are in the midst of installing (actually thought we were finished) vCenter 4, and when trying to use the converter on that box it does... See more...
I have a stand alone converter on my PC that works great. We are in the midst of installing (actually thought we were finished) vCenter 4, and when trying to use the converter on that box it doesn't provide every option that the stand alone does. It doesn't have the option to power off the original server after conversion, and it doesn't have the option to pick version 4 or version 7 of the image. The source types have different options, etc. It appears I have two totally different versions, but our consultant who installed vCenter says you never need to upgrade the one on vCenter. Any ideas?
Found it! Thanks a ton. http://communities.vmware.com/thread/73745?start=0&tstart=0 and this http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p2IFgyUF_v5Jn-7QobgY9Fw&gid=0
We're trying to get apples to apples comparisons on some different SAN/NAS products. Can someone point me to a paper somewhere that talks about IOPS for the n-series 6000 line or the comparible N... See more...
We're trying to get apples to apples comparisons on some different SAN/NAS products. Can someone point me to a paper somewhere that talks about IOPS for the n-series 6000 line or the comparible NetApp product? The EXN4000 drive cage(s) (am I saying that right?) will be used.
That SQL best practices looks juicy... going to read it. We are using ESXi4 for now (will be using ESX 3.5 and then 4 in the near future though)... but am I to understand that ESXi4 handles 64 bi... See more...
That SQL best practices looks juicy... going to read it. We are using ESXi4 for now (will be using ESX 3.5 and then 4 in the near future though)... but am I to understand that ESXi4 handles 64 bit better then ESXi 3.5?
Thanks all for the help. As for the physical server, it appears that once I turned off the VM "copy" of it, the problems went away. This is despite the fact that they had different IPs and differ... See more...
Thanks all for the help. As for the physical server, it appears that once I turned off the VM "copy" of it, the problems went away. This is despite the fact that they had different IPs and different names... I'm not sure if it was an AD SID thing or some of the SQL server names that exist in the SQL tables. Will test more after hours. This still doesn't explain the reason the VM was so slow when it was the only box running, but I probably need to do more of the clean up.
back to physical: I just renamed teh VM to something fake, then turned my old box back on. Active directory didnt have the name anymore, so i had to put it off domain, put it back on domain with ... See more...
back to physical: I just renamed teh VM to something fake, then turned my old box back on. Active directory didnt have the name anymore, so i had to put it off domain, put it back on domain with correct name.
the converter is just using 50 MB, so that in itself isnt a big deal... just didnt know if it "worked magic" and made SQL slow. I did stop the two main sql services before doing p2v. I may have n... See more...
the converter is just using 50 MB, so that in itself isnt a big deal... just didnt know if it "worked magic" and made SQL slow. I did stop the two main sql services before doing p2v. I may have not done all clean up , but i have to get the original back to normal before i can worry with the vm
I did a p2v of our 64 bit MS SQL 2005 box. I've had good luck with p2v with non SQL servers, but after doing this the VM runs like a dog. So I reverted back to my physical box... it is also run... See more...
I did a p2v of our 64 bit MS SQL 2005 box. I've had good luck with p2v with non SQL servers, but after doing this the VM runs like a dog. So I reverted back to my physical box... it is also running like a dog!!! Help! Memory usage by SQL used to be around 15 Gigs, now it's staying under 2 Gigs. I see the VMware-converter-a.exe *32 is still running. I see a sqlWb.exe *32 is running (can't remember if this is normal). In a bit of an emergecy, so any help is appreciated!