I’m getting frustrated since my another attempt did SRM test failover was failed last night and the problem may down to:

1- Customer requirement

One of the requirement during test failover is to break interdc connection between two sites and this will cause primary and recovery site disconnected. So far, we don’t have any problem to test failover when we didn’t break the interdc connection.

2 - SRM requirement

Although I’m not sure with this, but this KB did mentioned about test failover require interdc connection between primary and recovery site(solution no. 2) “Confirm connectivity between the primary and recovery site”

We did few SRM test failover for other customer before without any problem. But like I said, that’s because we didn’t break interdc connection and this what’s happening when we did. I’ve posted my problem in the VMTN and so far none can confirm this.

p/s: TEST FAILED, ACTUAL OK and how can I move on?

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Although many have done it before, I still want to show that how we can actually expand our existing datastore in vSphere 4.1. First, your underlying storage must able to support Dynamic LUN expansion which most storage products can do lately. Second, I recommend we do this while all VMs sitting inside this datastore have being powered off. If you lazy, move out all VMs to other datastore via Storage vMotion and move it back once we finished.

Seriously, for my testing purpose I’m using Starwind iscsi server as my back-end storage device and attached it to one of the ESXi host(4.1):

Setup:

• Host: ESXi 4.1 Build 260247
• Datastore: VMFS (iscsi)
• Datastore name: DS01 (1.5GB)/ LUN 0

First of all, I need to re-size the target LUN on my iscsi server and once done it, open vSphere client > configuration > storage:

• Right click target datastore “DS01″
• Properties,
• Select LUN to expand,
• Review “Free Space”,
• Tick “Maximum capacity” if you want to full utilize it,
• Review the summary and click “Finish”

You suppose now have new datastore size for “DS01″ which is bigger than original one (1.5GB).

 

I made my first live tutorial in Bahasa here for your reference. The sound may not very clear to some of you and I’m sorry for that.

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Last night I had this weird issue while doing storage vMotion for one of the VMs. The original datastore size was 500GB each and due to new SRM design, I have to move all VMs to their own datastore tier. I have no problem so far moving out 20 over VMs before but last night there is one VM which persist staying in the current datastore. Storage vMotion seems failed for this VM with error message referring to CBTMotion in vmware.log when it start copying the vmdk.

Manual copy and paste via vSphere client (datastore browser) always failed while reading the vmdk although I powered off the VM. Then I try copying out through service console by using $cp command but like others, this failed too with I/O read error on the vmdk. First thought, this have something to do with the LUN itself. I could be wrong since the VM can be powered on successfully and running in production without any problem. Read write operation(create new folder or copy paste) on this datastore also seem working as expected.

Since I ONLY been given for 6 hours to release this 500GB datastore to the storage guy for new LUNs creation, I have decided to log the incident with VMware Tech by calling 1-800. Three hours gone but VMware Tech support not even make a single call yet to us. While waiting for them and hoping they will fall from the sky, I try to clone the VM from the vCenter and you know what, it’s worked like a charm and I’m speechless. Another VM also having the same problem but this time storage vmotion ONLY failed at 86% no matter how many times I did it. To resolve this I have to clone the vmdk using $vmkfstools, $cp other small files to new datastore and register the VM in the inventory.

p/s: CBT in v4 was replaced with mirroring mechanism for storage vmotion in v5.

Thanks

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Well, as promised below are some information that I got while attending “What’s New vSphere Training, Day 2″. If you are looking for Day 1 information, please refer to here:

VMware Fault Tolerance v5:

• Support additional processor groups such as intel Sandy Bridge, Westmere-EX and AMD Bulldozer,
• Support additional guest OS such as Win7 SP1, Vista SP3, Win8, RHEL6 and etc,
• Still ONLY for VM with single vCPU

VMware HA v5:

• Use both network and storage communication(backup communication) channel,
• Host use master or slaves method(election) instead primary and secondary,
• Removed dependencies on DNS(fqdn),
• Management network partition support,
• Improved on host isolation response,
• Improved on Admission control,
• Improved on agent error reporting,
• One minutes for the whole cluster (HA)configuration,
• Difficulties: Low/Medium(design)

Notes: Recommend you all to completely go through new vSphere HA architecture. Indeed it is different architecture compare to v4. Instead Legato aam, VMware HA for v5 now was based on Fault Domain Manager(FDM).

vCenter Server Appliance v5:

• OVF running on SLES 11,
• Embedded database(DB2) - SMB,
• Support remote oracle database,
• Configuration performed via Web Access,
• Support vSphere Web Client,
• Client GUI completely similar to normal vSphere client,
• Support AD or NIS authentication,
• Import OVF > Power-on > Login to Web Access > Configure DB > Start service > Login via vSphere Client
• Difficulties: Low/medium(remote oracle)

 

Notes: There are some limitations i.e VC linked clone, VC heartbeat, MS SQL and IPv6 were not supported at this moment.
Auto Deploy Enabled ESXi v5:

• Completely running in memory,
• Installation image is loaded into host RAM,
• State is cleared once host shutdown,
• Host boot up and it gets bootable image from vCenter,
• Host can get configuration from optional host that is stored in vCenter,
• Configuration can be done via vSphere PowerCLI (10 different commands)
• Difficulties: Medium

Notes: Seriously, I think auto deploy enabled was meant for advance user since it require powershell skills, working DHCP server and some other caveats as well.

 
Thanks

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Just want to share a bit information that I got from the first day of the training. To be honest, since I forgot to bring my pen , plus my laziness towards reading a book, all notes were posted in my Facebook.

Nevertheless, it is mean for entry level or your basic understanding. BTW, the training focusing much on v5:

• Key components,
• Additional Features,
• Enhancement & etc,

If you already familiar with vSphere 4.x(v4), there is nothing much to worry about. In fact, you will notice all legacy features (i.e HA, DRS, vMotion) in v4 akin to what we have in v5 now. Yes, slightly different on HA portion but mostly, it still the same. Don’t ask me about technical details of some additional features such as VSA mirroring, Storage vMotion mirroring mechanism, vDS LLDP and etc. I’m still at the early stage of v5. The trainer itself unable to answer some of trainee questions though.

So here we go:

There modules of the training:

• Key Enhancement
• How to upgrade from v4 to v5
• v5 Web Client
• Networking enhancement
• VMFS 5
• Profile based storage
• Storage DRS
• VMware HA
• vCenter appliance
• Image builder
• Auto Deploy

Notes:

• It has been confirmed, there is no more ESX in v5
• vCenter v5 still can manage 3.5 or 4.x hosts

Configuration Max for ESXi:

• 2TB Hosts memory,
• Up to 160 logical cpu,
• 512 VMs per host,
• 2048 vCPU per host.

Notes:

• 2098MB min memory for ESXi 5.0 installation,
• two boot devices option a)USB b)GPT > 2TB disk
• VMM 64bit running in the background

vCenter 5 Requirement:

• 4GB memory
• 4GB disk
• database - MS SQL Server 2008 R2 Express
• OS Windows Server 2003, 2008 (Both with or without R2)
• vCenter appliance - SuSE Linux, (for SMB)

Notes:

• Converter no longer bundle with v5. Moved to standalone

VMware Update Manager 5:

• No longer able to patch guest operating system
• However, separate tool (vCM) can be used

ESXi Upgrade Path:

• ESX/i 4.x to ESXi 5.0 supported
• can use Update Manager if already have vCenter or
• Use ESXi installer
• Scripting

vCenter Upgrade from v4 to v5:

• Stop vCenter service
• The rest can use default option
• Difficulties: Low

VUM upgrade from v4 to v5:

• No need to stop vum service,
• choose upgrade DB & make sure you have backup
• Rock n roll
• Difficulties: Low

ESX/ESXi upgrade:

• upgrade via VUM5
• Upload ESXi image (iso) to VUM5
• Compliance > attach base line > Remediate ESXi host
• Difficulties: Low

Virtual Machine Enhancement:

• Up to 32 vCPU,
• 1TB vRAM,
• Version 8(improved net driver E1000e),
• 3D graphic support,
• USB3.0 supported devices (smart card reader as well)
• VM boot from Efi

Notes:

• Snapshot consolidation for VM now available to consolidate broken chain of snapshot
• Notification will appear in VM summary tab about broken snapshot although no snapshot listed in snapshot manager
• Right Click VM > Snapshot > Consolidate
• VMware Tools and Virtual Hardware upgrade can be done via VUM
• Difficulties: Low

vCenter 5.0 Web Client:

• Minimum control
• Create, VM operation, Configure VM resources, View object, basic health monitoring, remote console for VM, manage vApp
• Can be installed on the same machine as VC
• Need to register VC in web client
• Difficulties: Low (Bug) need to stop/start vCenter, web client services

ESXi Stateless Firewall:

• new firewall engine & not based on iptables
• services oriented stateless firewall
• block incoming/outgoing traffic
• ESXi > configuration > software > Security Profile > Properties
• Difficulties: Low

New in vDS 5:

• Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) & similar to cisco discovery
• Netflow feature increase visibility of traffic flow between VM (developed by cisco, version 5)
• Port Mirroring can assist network troubleshooting similar to Cisco’s SPAN

vDS Port Mirroring:

• duplicate packets of source to destination
• used for troubleshooting, network analysis appliance
• v5 support port mirroring on vDS to monitor VM traffic
• Difficulties: Medium
  

Storage vMotion:

• VM has snapshot supported (for ESXi5.0 ONLY)
• VM that use linked clone also supported
• underlying technology for storage DRS
• using mirroring mechanism replaced changed block tracking in v4.1(zero,one,zero)

VAAI: vStorage API for Array Integration:

• Hardware Acceleration for NAS
• Hardware Acceleration for Thin Provision

Storage General:

• SSD disk supported - automatically tag and enable in v5 (Driver Type show as SSD)
• Software FCoE (converged/NCA) supported in v5 (require vmkernel port group)
  

vSphere Storage Appliance(VSA):

• Distributed array
• provide vMotion & HA for SMB,
• Run on ESXi host - each host have own VSA
• Provide shared datastore for all hosts
• Datastore replication
• Hardware & software capabilities
• intended for low-end and small business
• Design multiple ESXi hosts but only can replicate to one host (max)
• Data can be accessed via NFS v3 protocol
• Default RAID 10 will be used
• Difficulties: N/A
  

VMFS 5:

• datastore & single extent can be > 2TB,
• max datastore 64TB,
• Pass through RDM can > 2TB but max 64TB,
• Newly created vmfs datastore (v5) only have/use 1MB block size,
• File system block size is 64KB,
• GPT replace the MBR
• VMware recommended to use RDM for volume bigger than 2TB
• max size of single .vmdk remain at 2TB
• when migrated vmfs3, old block size still retained
• To upgrade vmfs 3 to 5 - host > configuration > select datastore > right click > select upgrade to vmfs 5 link
• Difficulties: Low (power-on VM is okay)

vStorage API for Storage Awareness (VASA):

• VASA allows storage vendor to develop software component called VASA provider for it’s array
• VASA provider gets info from array abaout storage topology, capability and state

Profile Driven Storage:

• Provide varying level of services for datastore
• Home > Profile Driven > attach datastore > attach VM > check compliance or not
  
• Difficulties: Low

Okay, first day session ended here. I will continue once I finished my second day of training.

4 comments

Virtual Disk Development Kit(VDDK) is an open API and SDK that help customer to access virtual disk. Virtual Disk API or VixDiskLib is a set of function calls to manipulate virtual disk files in vmdk format. Since I’m not familiar with this API, I don’t want to discuss about how we can do VDDK programming here.

Instead, I would like to share with you, how we can do a remote mount vmdk by using command #vmware-mount.exe. However, please bear in mind, you cannot do remote mount for power-on(even with a snapshot) or suspend VM.

1)First, get your kit here and install it to default location,

2)Then, get your VM disk information as below,

3)Open CMD and go to VDDK directory #cd c:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit\bin Read more

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I found my new hobby recently (programming using vSphere Web Services SDK 4.1 + Visual Studio C# Express) and after I tried few times yesterday, definitely I’m going to love this programming. Initially, it took me more than hour to successfully run Build2008.cmd script. But once, I got it installed, running few sample apps make me eager to have my own first C# application.

To be honest I didn’t go for any programming class before. In fact, I came from accounting background but somehow gave up my accounting career due to Makcik2 Gemuk (fat auntie) mouth. But believe me, I’m good in copying, modifying or enhance people script or program .

So for all beginner just like me, and willing to test it out, here we go:

• Create new VM(Windows XP 32bit, 10GB hdd, 512MB ram - SP2 at least),
• Download & Install Visual Studio C# 2008 Express here,
• Download vSphere Web Services SDK 4.1 here,
• Extract vSphere SDK to any folder you want (mine c:\SDK),
• Open CMD and change to #cd C:\SDK\SDK\samples\DotNet
• Then run this command #set WSDLFILE=C:\SDK\SDK\wsdl
• Finally run Build2008.cmd script

During build, you should get something like this:

I don’t want to add complexity to this default installation steps. Assuming everything is okay and you can start to run any sample script that you want for example:

Cool isn’t?. No doubt, I’m going to create own apps soon but before that, I want to celebrate (show-off) this achievement with colleague first. Huhuhuu

ariyossss

1 comment