Third post in the Top 5 Planet V12N

More or less by coincidence I discovered that one of my posts had made it to the weekly V12N top 5 blog posts at the VMTN blog - which to me is quite an honour. It means, I guess, that someone else finds your writings useful to some extent.

This is the third post I have on the Top 5 list:

Week 5, 2011

Capacity Planner 2.8.0 released - A new version of VMware Capacity Planner v2.8.0 build 46460 has been released (only available to partners). The most notable new features are support for desktop assessments and that multiple assessments can be grouped under one company. The collector interface is more or less unchanged.

Week 51, 2010

P2V pre-migration checklist - and considerations - My previous post was a P2V post migration checklist. This post is a pre-migration checklist which is about all the information that should gathered and checked before doing any P2V conversions. I have been involved in a number of larger P2V projects (+50 P2V's) and, in my experience, proper planning is a key element for a successful project. Typically, you, as a VMware- or P2V person, have no real knowledge of the Windows servers to be converted - their just another server.

Week 48, 2009

VLAN testing in ESX 3.5 - The traditional way of testing is to create a vSwitch with only one vmnic connected. Then connect a VM on that vSwitch with one of the VLANs. Configure an IP address in the address space of the VLAN and ping the gateway. Do this for all the VLANs, and then connect the next vmnic to the vSwitch and start over. The following method speeds up VLAN testing significantly (in this case from 100 to 16 test cases). It is not totally automated, but I have found it very useful nonetheless.

Capacity Planner - uploading to Dashboard without internet access

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been setting up a Capacity Planner at a customer site (not full time, though). There have been the usual complications of not receiving user accounts with the proper access rights but also this time there was trouble uploading data from the Collector to the Dashboard. The customer uses a proxy server and even though we had specified as a requirement that TCP port 80 and 443 outbound should be opened, they weren't. I could register the collector but no files were transferred to the Dashboard and files stayed in the 'outbox'. After a while they found another proxy that could be used, and right away after reconfiguring the proxy from within the collector, I could see files started transferring (It's quite nice to see when the tool actually works as expected - because it doesn't always in my opinion...)

So I was looking around for another way to upload the files and it turns out, that this can be done fairly easily. The process is fairly straight forward. On the primary collector you generate the files to be uploaded but then you leave them in the outbox. Then you copy the files from the outbox and put them in the outbox of another collector that works and has proper internet access. This secondary collector does not need to registered to the specific project or customer as the files have already been tagged with an ID and the Dashboard will know where to put the files. I followed this KB article to move files to another collector.

Another learning point was that if you're unsure that your files are actually uploaded all the way to the Dashboard and you want have a backup, then enable the 'archiving' function on the collector. That way you will keep all info and will be able to re-upload at a later stage. See this KB article for reference. Make sure to have enough disk space available. After one week of collecting data without sending any to the Dashboard for 150 servers - the log files amounted to about 1 GB of data (for a full CA analysis).

And bonus info: After the update to 2.8.0, they have change Dashboard somewhat. Now, data can end up both under a given 'project', which is the default view when you login, or it can end up under the 'customer' tab (there are two different tabs in your customer overview). This, to me, was quite confusing as I was expecting to see data arriving under the 'projects' tab which was reporting 'no data collected' for the customer even though I had been uploading data for almost one week.

ESX 4.1 install error on BL460c G7 - NIC driver fails to load

The HP BL460c G7 is on the VMware HCL list for ESX 4.1. However, when trying to install ESX 4.1 there's an error during install - it fails to load drivers for the network adapter ("No network adapters were detected"). It doesn't help to update all firmware to latest version (even though this should be done in any case...) (Update 2011.02.18: This problem persists on ESX 4.1 U1)

This is a known error and there's a fix for it. However, it seems strange that the G7 blade has made it to the HCL list...

The problem is that the Integrated NC553i Dual Port FlexFabric 10Gb NIC driver is not included in VMware's installation ISO for ESX 4.1. There are two ways to solve the issue. One is to load a custom set of drivers for the NIC and the other is to use an HP VMware install image. If you're using ESXi or scripted installation of ESX classic, then you have to use the HP image.

(Update 2011.07.19: Custom HBA driver should also be loaded during installation - simply load both ISOs)

Custom NIC driver from VMware can be downloaded here.

Custom HBA driver from VMware can be downloaded here.

(Update 2011.02.18: Apparently, the NIC drivers are updated quite frequently at the moment. Go to this main link and then 'plus out' Driver CDs to find the most recent one.)

HP image for ESX(i) can be downloaded from here.

The custom driver, when downloaded, is in an ISO format. To load it during installation, do the following:

• Upload the ISO file to where you have the ESX installation image
• On the Custom Drivers page in the wizard, choose Yes and click on Add. It will tell you to load the driver CD (see picture below)
• Unmount the ESX installation CD and mount the driver ISO in stead. This can be done without interrupting the installation. You will be prompted to verify the custom driver package, click OK (see picture below)
• That's it. at a later stage in the wizard, you will be prompted to reinsert the installation ISO. Do that when prompted.

Capacity Planner 2.8.0 released

A new version of VMware Capacity Planner v2.8.0 build 46460 has been released (only available to partners). The most notable new features are support for desktop assesments and that multiple assesments can be grouped under one company. The collector interface is more or less unchanged.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like VMware is spending too many resources developing this tool.

More importantly, support for Windows 2008 server for the collector has been added (see installation guide page 8, requires login)

Below is the "what's new" part of the release notes:

WHAT'S NEW IN CAPACITY PLANNER 2.8

The following items are the main changes in this version.

· Desktop Assessments. In addition to CA and CE assessments, users can create Desktop Assessments. These assessments facilitate analyzing a Desktop environment for virtualization. To support Desktop assessments, additional objects are collected for analysis.

· Collector or Dashboard Inventory Additions. Information about Users, Login Profiles, Logon Sessions, User Groups and Networks is collected in addition to the existing objects in CP 2.7.x. The Dashboard provides different views that help users identify the Users, Locations, Networks and Desktops that are View Ready.

· Separate Projects and Companies. Instead of creating a separate company for each type of Assessment, users can create multiple CA, CE, or Desktop projects within the same company. They can use the same data collected within a company to perform different Assessments. The landing page is redesigned to show separate Projects and Companies tab.

· Hardware Profiles. Hardware Profiles allow tags to describe the Hardware. Hardware Profiles can represent different types of Hardware such as CPU, Chassis, Adaptor NIC etc. Users can create Hardware Profiles representing specific devices and have the option to mark them View Ready. This information is used in identifying whether Desktops having the corresponding hardware are View ready.

· Reporting Enhancement. Optimization reports have been modified to include View Readiness information for Users, Networks, Locations, and Desktops.

· Templates Update. Cluster and Shared Storage templates are added to specify Cluster and Shared Storage configuration. These templates can be included in Scenarios for placement of systems.

· Scenario Improvement. The scenario can now be marked for Desktops or Servers. Users have the Cross Boundaries option for Networks. The Scenarios can now build clusters considering shared storage.

VMworld 2011 in Copenhagen - again!

The locations of this years VMworld 2011 have been announced at the vmworld.com site. It will be in Las Vegas (like in 2008) from August 29-September 1 and in Copenhagen, and I assume it will be in the Bella Center like last year, from October 18-20.

I did hear some rumors about Barcelona for the European conference but I must admit that, even though it's not as exotic, the conference in Copenhagen was very well organised with nice facilities and easy transportation.

Online backup for personal computer

For a while now I have been trying to persuade myself to start using an online backup service for my private documents, pictures, emails etc. The thing is that over the years I have, like most others I guess, built up quite a lot of personal data which it would be impossible to recreate should it be lost.

Until now I have backed up data to from the laptop to an external USB drive. This method works smoothly with the built-in backup software on the USB drive from Seagate. And I will be able to restore data should the disk fail or if I lost the laptop. However, for the most part the external disk with the backup data was, and is, lying just next to laptop. So in case of a break in, a thief would most likely take both the laptop and the usb disk. Or in case of a fire or other such extreme cases both laptop and backup will be lost. The risk is small but the impact, from my personal perspective, is rather high.

After looking online backup I found the following things which was reassuring:

Online backup seems to be a relatively mature market. There are quite a few players, and prices seem competitive. A one year subscription ranges from 50-100 US$.

Security seems to be in adequate . Most providers encrypt data before, while, and after it has been uploaded. Unfortunately, encryption is only protected by password (at least for the solution that I chose) so it's not this double security approach where it's something you have (like a RSA token or PKI) and something you know (the password). However, for my chosen solution, I first have to log in, and then I have to provide a strong password, which is not stored at the service provider, to acutally restore data.

Of the bigger players can be mentioned IDrive, Mozy, Carbonite, Crashplan, and BackBlaze. I read a few reviews and it seems that, a part for some minor differences, they offer pretty much the same service, so one should be pretty safe to choose either one of them.

Here's link to two reviews: From Notebook Review and from Digital Inspiration

I was leaning towards Crashplan mostly because the interface appealed to me and a colleague recommended it. However, I ended up choosing IDrive for the following reasons:

• It's been around for longer than the other players (you don't want your backup provider to go out of business).
• Phone support (when trouble hits it's always nice to be able to call someone...)
• Price was right for my needs (50 US$/year for one computer and 150 GB storage)
• Online browse and restore of files
• Continuous backup and file versioning
• Sufficient security
• Status reports via email

My experience after a weeks use is that maybe it is not the fanciest of interfaces, b

ut it gets the job done. After three or four days I had uploaded my ~25 GB of data over the ADSL connection and I have tested restore of files from the web interface successfully. And email notifications work.

On a final note I can mention that I have been using Dropbox for a while to be able to share files between computers and to be able to reach files online. It's limited to 2 GB in the free edition but it can be highly recommended. It supplements the backup application but it cannot substitute it in my opinion.

Installing a web server on an Amazon AWS free VM

In the previous post I described how you get a free linux VM in the Amazon AWS cloud up and running. This post will describe how you can use it for something practical.

Apt-get is not installed on this Micro Instance VM. So at first I tried to do a manual install of Apache by simply uploading the .tar.gz files to the VM via WinSCP and tried to run the .configure file. This didn't work as a C compiler was not installed on the system. I went on to look for GCC and got that installed and then I could install Apache. For some reason it didn't quite work, though. And also it's mayby a little too much work to get a web server up and running...

Then I stumbled upon the Yum command which is similar to Apt-get and which is actually pre-installed in the VM and is working out of the box.

With Yum, installation is a breeze. Issue the following commands:

#sudo yum install httpd
#sudo chkconfig httpd on
#sudo /etc/init.d/httpd start

The sudo command will not prompt you for a password but will let you execute commands as root. You can't su -root... (alternatively, you can try sudo -i to get a root shell)

If it complains about a missing C compiler, then install it this way:

#sudo yum install gcc

The web server installs its .conf file in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf. There's is the usual test page displayed until you place an index.html file in the /var/www/html folder.