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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

How do I resize the data-vmdks of the two VMs

I need to deploy vCops in a site that is way smaller than what VMware assumes as "small" deployment.
So using the original size of 200Gb and 120 Gb for the two data-disks would be overkill.

The customer does not allow thin provisioning. So I need to either replace both data vmdks or resize them to make them smaller.

Is there a supported way to do this ?


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I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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critical3rr0r
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thats an interesting idea Smiley Happy.

Possibly deploy in a lab, use converter to do a v2v shrinking the disk and then export as a new .ova?

Also the disk size information is a configurtion setting within the .ovf file itself. You need to extract the .ovf file from the .ova package, edit the disk size (very simple to find) and repackage.

Good luck! Curious to see how this plays out.

"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be."
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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

> You need to extract the .ovf file from the .ova package, edit the disk size (very simple to find) and repackage.

Nice idea but it fails - if I edit the ovf I can no longer deploy it as the certificate check fails.
I edit the sha1 checksum in the VMware-vcops-5.0.0.0-554150-vapp.mf but that aint enough.

I tried to resize the data.vmdks after deployment but so far every attempt failed.

This is ridiculous.
Now I need to tell my customer that he needs 300 Gb of diskspace to monitor his production VMs that altogether run on a LUN smaller than one TB.
He will ask me if I am nuts ...


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Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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critical3rr0r
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Yeah I know that sucks. Even in our environment the disk requirements threw me off a bit. Even if your customer allowed you to Thin Provision it is highly discourged because of the performance hit you might take and is not supported by VMware. So lets continue to work this out ...

When you say you can no longer deploy it you mean you can no longer deploy the .ovf or you can no longer deploy the .ova after a repackage? Sorry, I am at work and not at my lab to test.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

I tried to generate a new cert file but the OVF-tool documentation is missing a few steps and so the command to create your own key fails
openssl req -x509 -nodes -sha1 -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout myself.pem -out myself.pem

So repackaging is not possible :smileycry:


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Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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critical3rr0r
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Ok, have you tried importing just the .ovf without repackage? The VMs can exist and run in a cluster without actually being a vAPP. Possibly deploying the VMs individually might work. 

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

Now I tried to deploy the ovf without cert.
I edited this section

<Disk ovf:diskId="data"
          ovf:capacity="61440"
          ovf:capacityAllocationUnits="byte * 2^20"
          ovf:format="http://www.vmware.com/interfaces/specifications/vmdk.html#streamOptimized"
          ovf:fileRef="data.vmdk_id"
          ovf:populatedSize="86376448"/>
    <Disk ovf:diskId="data2"
          ovf:capacity="102400"
          ovf:capacityAllocationUnits="byte * 2^20"
          ovf:format="http://www.vmware.com/interfaces/specifications/vmdk.html#streamOptimized"
          ovf:fileRef="data2.vmdk_id"
          ovf:populatedSize="86376448"/>

and the deployment procedure starts but fails in the end.

Looks like I need to manually resize the 2 data vmdks.

@ VMware - please consider to add an option for "tiny" environments.
The system requirements for a "small" environment are so high that potential customers might run away when they look at them.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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kmurthy
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

VMware has not said that they will not support thin provisioning (I'll have the docs corrected if you can point me to where they say this); it's only that it has a performance hit of about 20% compared to thick provisioned eager zeroed deployment. If the storage her enough performance to account for this 20% drop, then by all means you can use thin provisioning. Further, if you are not on vSphere 5.0, you don't have the option of thick with eager zero, only thick with lazy zero which is similar to thin in terms of performance - thin is as good/worse as thick here. I suggest that you try to convince the customer to use thin provisioning instead of fiddling with the ovf files (which is unsupported !)

Thanks.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

I am running vCops with thin provisioning at home - no problem at all.
Its just that my customer does not allow Thin-provisioning and I have to accept that.

If anyone here has a modified ovf and modified data.vmdk that uses a reasonable size for a real small environment please let me know how to create the files.
I tried to resize the data vmdks by modifying the descriptors but failed


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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critical3rr0r
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KM-

There is no documentation to change. If I remember correctly the Installation and Configuration Guide doesn't even cover the vAPP so maybe you can get VMware to change that?

The strong recommendation for thick provisioning and any warnings associated with thin provisioning are dialog within the vAPP deployment wizard .. again, if my memory serves me correctly. I only mentioned that it is unsupported because if you call support with performance issues the first thing they are going to point out is the fact that you thin provisioned. Most vendors, in my experience, have a hard time moving forward with troubleshooting issues when you do not follow their recommended deployment. Higher level VMware support tiers are of course more then willing to help resolve issues.

The "point and click option" for eager 0 thick provisioning was added to vSphere 5.0 vDisk deployment wizard but the functionality is by no means excluded from previous versions of VMware. In pre 3.5 eager 0 thick was the default for various scenarios and VMware claims that they fixed this feature in 3.5 and beyond but I have found using VMware's own validation techniques that in many circumstances this feature still exist.

Back on topic, until VMware releases a vCops 5.0 codename "tiny" deployment I will try and help with continuum's efforts to build an unsupported solution ... its fun to play outside the box Smiley Wink .

"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be."
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