When applications are aware of like-configured systems providing the same services, it is a beautiful thing. The most frequent example is a Web service that has a number of VMs providing the same Web content and load balanced in some fashion. These Web server VMs each process browser traffic and provide back the same content, including any database or Web applications that need to be done to deliver back to the clients.
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/24/20097 comments
There is an interesting discussion developing in the blogosphere regarding storage technologies for virtual environments. I've mentioned VMware employee Eric Gray's personal blog
VCritical
as a good virtualization resource. Somewhat harsh, but Eric has been known to counter with the rare VCompliment from time to time. One of Eric's recent posts, "
Hands off that CSV!
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/22/20099 comments
In the competitive spirit, a
very long post
comparing costs for Hyper-V R2 and VMware vSphere was recently posted by Microsoft TechNet blogger
Matt McSpirit
. I think the post is great. As a blogger, I was first of all quite impressed by the 5,000+ word count. That doesn't quite feel like a normal blog as it is quite a bit of reading, but it does allow a thorough explanation of the topic. Blogging can become a narrow field of vision at times, so I appreciate the time allocated to make the post and thoughts clear.
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/16/20092 comments
One of the new features available for vSphere is the ability to assign role-based permissions to datastores, including VMFS volumes. It is important to note that these permissions are managed exclusively by vCenter and not the filesystem. What this means is that if you access the NFS or VMFS volume outside of vCenter's access authority, these roles do not apply.
Access to VMFS volumes is managed on the volume directly, in lieu of a coordinator. In an earlier post, I outlined how VMFS volumes can easily cross management zones as part of their design. Further, VMFS-3 volumes are forward and backward compatible with VI3 and vSphere installations. This is important as the new datastore consumer role for VMFS permissions within vCenter do not modify the volume itself and affect older installations.
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/14/20091 comments
In an earlier post I mentioned that the upgrade to vSphere is the right time to make the decision between ESXi and ESX. In any experience with ESXi, you will undoubtedly notice the option in a number of places to enable ESXi Lockdown mode. Both platforms support Lockdown mode, but I want to focus on its behavior for ESXi host installations.
Lockdown mode simply removes any remote root-level access to the host through the vSphere Client. For managed installations using vSphere with vCenter, this is a safe configuration. Lockdown mode will require all communications to use the vCenter Agent on the ESXi system. When managed by vCenter, the communication between the ESXi host and vCenter uses a special user, called vpxuser. If lockdown mode is used, the most visible indication is that you cannot log into the ESXi host via the vSphere Client directly as root. Logging into a host (whether it be ESXi or ESX) directly with the vSphere or VI Client can make sense in certain troubleshooting situations, but generally if the host is managed by vCenter all client activity should be done there. Another side effect of enabling Lockdown mode would be any virtualization-specific tools that use the root account to access the ESXi host directly.
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/10/20093 comments
Going into this year's VMworld in San Francisco, I had an open mind about the entire event with the intention that I would critique it publicly the week after. Here we are and I can say that VMworld overall was good. Before the start of the week, I was pretty sure that there was not going to be any ground-breaking announcement directly from VMware. I do, however, respect the early workings of possibly some big things with the vCloud API, client hypervisors and where the SpringSource acquisition can go with infrastructure integration.
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/08/20094 comments
Getting started on the training and certification path for
vSphere
is a good idea. Many IT professionals have advanced their careers with experience in virtualization, with VMware technologies being a great example where training and experience will lead to better things.
There are a number of resources and strategies to employ to be successful with the new platform. Here are some of the things that I am doing with vSphere to supplement my professional experience with the product:
Lab time: You have to devote time to learning the product in a lab. This can be your formal development equipment, or if you are serious about learning the product you could purchase a server for use at home.
Resources: A good book is a timeless resource, even for fast-moving technical topics. One of the good resources that literally just became available is Scott Lowe's new book, Mastering VMware vSphere 4. I am only a few chapters in, but the book is well written and easy to follow.
Different perspectives: One of the strongest points about virtualization is that so many solutions can be architected for specific needs. In my own development I found that I had learned simply what I needed to know for my own requirements initially. I took it upon myself to broaden my VMware configurations in my self-guided training, and found that very enriching. The best example is storage. It is a good idea to work with other storage products and configurations that may be different from what you already know. An example would be that if your experience is limited to fibre channel storage, work with iSCSI products. I have used the openfiler and NexentaStor products to use NFS and iSCSI storage with vSphere. These can even be run as virtual machines for lab environments.
Commitment: If you want to advance on any technology, you have to want it. Most people won't develop in areas that they are not interested in.
A personal skill development plan is critical to embracing the new technology and advancing your career, if you are interested. Does vSphere offer a development opportunity for you? Share your comments below.
Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/03/20092 comments
One of the most important parts of VMware's
vSphere
offering is the collective migration technology,
VMotion
. In the current landscape, this includes migrating VMs from one host to another as well as from one storage system to another. Let's take a quick look at configuring VMotion to work for ESXi hosts in vSphere.
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/01/20096 comments
VMworld is an interesting beast. Trying to explain it to someone outside of virtualization is more difficult than it seems. It isn't really training, it isn't entirely a trade show; it is more than just networking, yet it isn't like most other events. I had the opportunity to attend last year in Las Vegas and will be at this year's event in San Francisco next week.
VMworld is also over-stimulating, as each day is jam-packed with events. My head hurt after last year's show. There will be a flood of news and Twitter feeds of VMworld-related events. Here are some good feeds to follow as VMworld happens:
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 08/27/20092 comments
For VMs running on ESX and ESXi version 4, there's new functionality for creating snapshots. Generally speaking, I prefer not to have user-created VM snapshots in production-class server consolidation environments, as I believe they can become unmanageable.
Snapshots are, however, critical to functions like virtualization-centric backup solutions and use in test or development capacities. vSphere's offering of quiesced snapshots allows a VM to be in a more consistent state during the snapshot.
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 08/24/20091 comments
Earlier in the year, I wrote about the PlateSpin Forge disaster recovery appliance. Forge is unique, as it leverages PlateSpin's sophisticated conversion technologies to replicate workloads to an ESX server locally on a dedicated piece of hardware and management.
PlateSpin has updated Forge to version 2.5. Functionality enhancements include:
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 08/19/20092 comments
Earlier last week, I mentioned that I didn't care too much about the race between VMware and Microsoft that's getting hot. The heated discussions associated with platform evangelism generally makes my eyes roll, mainly because I am sure of where I am in my virtualization practice.
Just this week, I received a series of questions asking where Microsoft's Hyper-V R2 and SCVMM R2 offering is compared to VMware from a competitive standpoint. My answers were probably not very nice. I'll work on that.
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Posted by Rick Vanover on 08/18/20092 comments