Mar 9

P2V MS Windows Cluster Running Exchange 2003

Category: Nox

After failed with my first attempt today and with meticulous preparations, finally I managed to P2V one of MS cluster machine running Exchange 2003 without much hassle. Since we already know how intricate Exchange is, there are few things we need to be careful before we decide to P2V this cluster box but below are the list of steps which proven and works for my second attempt :

Objective :

  • P2V 2x physical Windows Cluster Box running Exchange 2003 to 2x ESX host (ESX4.0U1)

Cluster Setup :

  • Clustering VMs on one Physical Host
  • Clustering VMs Across Physical Hosts
  • Clustering Physical and VMs

If you refer to VMware documents (vi3_301_201_mscs), each cluster setup will require a different configuration on the VMs setting. In my case, I should setup the VMs for “Clustering VMs across physical hosts” though I forgot, before I’m going to have 2x VMs across 2x ESX hosts, I will only manage to P2V the VMs one by one. Failed to identify this caused me trouble to bring up the first VM after P2Ved it due to quorum disk scsi reservation issue. So, once I followed the “Clustering Physical and VMs” instead “Clustering VMs across physical hosts” setup the problem solved.

P2V Migration Method

  • Hot Cloning
  • Cold Cloning

Deep in my heart keep pushing me to choose Hot Cloning because of the challenges I will face over Cold Cloning. However, since this is my first time to P2V MS Cluster & Exchange box, I determined to migrate the box via vCenter bootable CD (4.1.1).

Pre-Migration

Nothing much need to be done, except I make sure both machines in good state. Just assume one of the box out of sudden got power failure. I cannot do anything, cannot properly shutdown the machine & etc. Once I down the machine I did present all LUN inclusive quorum & exchange logs and data disk to one target ESX host. So the summary : Read more

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Mar 6

P2V Windows Domain Controller Machine.

Category: vSphere

After a well plan, today I’m successfully P2Ved one of Windows DC (Win2K3) machine without much hassle. Without taking any risk on the exercise, I did cold clone the machine with simple steps as below :

  • Using vCenter Converter 4.1.1 bootable CD
  • Disable all critical services
  • Retain the system drive as much as possible as we can during conversion.
  • Removed HP Insight software after conversion (Network)
  • Removed Trend Micro Software before VMware Tools installation.
  • Reconfigure & verify network configuration
  • Enable back critical services (i.e dhcp, dns)
  • Only enable VM network after I finished will all above steps
  • Turn-off main DC and test authenticate user to this DC

Next week, I will share the conversion steps for 2x Exchange 2003 Servers.
Ariyossss

athlon_crazy 06/03/2010

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Mar 6

Manually Assign Mac Address for VM

Category: vSphere

Had a problem with Merak FlexLM application today which cannot be started and complaint about licensing after I P2Ved the server to vSphere4. After when I looked into FlexLM .lic license, found out the license only eligible for the old physical server mac address and cannot be transferred to any other machine. Luckily, after I manually changed guest OS mac address (NIC property) akin to what I found in .lic license, I can start using the application (PEEP) flawlessly. To manually change and use your own mac address, please follow below :
Device Manager -> Network Card Property -> Advance -> Network Address / Local Administered Address -> Value

ariyossss

athlon_crazy 06/03/2010

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Feb 27

Vyatta 6.0 Beta Available.

Category: News

Hohoho, just noticed vyatta 6.0 beta now available for download here. Those who still do not know what Vyatta is and what Vyatta can do, please try it first. For me, it’s good software-based networking approach for virtualization integration which also can do what most physical layer 3 switch can do.

Thanks

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Feb 24

VCB End Of Availability

Category: vSphere

Finally, VMware announced EOA for VCB for next future platform release. However, this will only affected on current vSphere platform. So, what’s next? Since vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) already been released by VMware together with vSphere release on May 2009, they decided to focus on VADP as their new VMware Backup Framework.

Original

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Jan 30

VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6

Category: VMware

VMware just released new update for VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 (Release Notes)

This new release will improve :

  • Guest Operating System Customization Improvements
  • Support for Firefox 3.x Browsers with VirtualCenter Web Access
  • Bug and security fixes

ariyossss

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Jan 24

SLES 11 - SAMBA + LDAP

Category: Nox

As promised in my last post regarding SLES11, I chose Samba + Openldap to be the first 2 services I’m going to try for the operational and stability in SLES11. Since we all knew this is trivial job for some system admin to configure both services and make it running well on SLES10 and some Linux Distro.

Objectives:

  • To have Samba file sharing and user authentication via LDAP server.

Software Requirements:

  • Samba Version 3.2.7-11.6-2057-SUSE-CODE11
  • Openldap2-2.4.12-7.14
  • perl

Notes : All software will be installed by default during SLES11 installation. However I still have to install “perl-ldap” before I can run any “smbldap-tools” command.
Additional Software

  • smbldap-tools-0.9.5-26.1

Samba+Ldap also require “smbldap-tools” for user & group operation. Unfortunately, akin to the previous one, SLES11 also doesn’t come with “smbldap-tools”. I have to download it manually from somewhere which I forgot where :) Read more

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