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I have set up a VMware test environment with a equallogic PS4000 and two dual 6 core HP DL380 hosts with 64gb of ram each. I have an additional PS4000 and HP DL380 that I would like to use as a failover off site. I have gotten HA and FT up and running on my two host cluster at the main site and tomorrow I am going to setup the offsite SAN for replication and work on setting up the second Vcenter Server. Is there a way to set things up so that if my primary SAN dies the secondary Vcenter Server kicks on and takes over automatically? What are the considerations to make this happen if possible? I like that I can "pull the plug" on a host and have constant uptime on important guests and would like that to exist between sites as well. We are going to be ordering SRM licenses shortly as I believe they are necessary. Is there a need to have both sites use the same subnet? This is likely doable after we setup a firewall at each end. What we envision is that our primary site can host a single server worth of guests comfortably and we will use FT to keep them up no matter what. If we have a total site failure we will use the single host as our backup until we get the main site up. We may eventually purchase a second host for the failover site. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 22:36
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Kachunkachunk posted:Oh boy, you probably want to talk to a consultant, but it sounds like vCenter Heartbeat could do what you're hoping. Though it shouldn't be necessary if you're using SRM to manage two sites, I think. Unfortunately, consultants are not an option  I have books, a lab environment and time...For FT pairs, I am looking at using it with the vCenter Server machine at a minimum as it seems like if the host that my vCenter Server instance is residing on goes down, I will have an annoying problem. I will look at the FT stuff again to make sure that there is nothing I missed. Internet Explorer posted:Maybe I'm old school or just used to playing with setups that aren't an unlimited budget, but automating something like that seems odd to me. The chances of an entire SAN failing is relatively low and automating the start of rolling over seems risky. I'd say use SRM to do it all for you, but still require someone to push a button to get it started. As I understand it, out of the box SRM requires a push of a button and is not automatic. I guess you could script it to be automatic but it turns out that would be a horrible folly. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Mar 22, 2012 |
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Mar 22, 2012 12:21
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I am trying to flesh out a test environment for a VMware project that will be 3 hosts connecting to a SAN. I am considering having the network guy setup vlans as follows and just want to know if it makes sense. 1 vlan for management network. 1 physical port per host (should this be private non-routable?) 1 vlan for vMotion. 1 physical port per host. Private/non routable 1 vlan for FT. 1 physical port per host. Private/non routable 1 vlan for guest network. 2 teamed physical ports per host. Firewalled/routable 1 vlan for iSCSI. 1 physical nic per host. Private/non routable This seems like I am overshooting the needs for physical ports a bit. Can the vMotion/FT groups be combined to work on the same vlan and physical port? It is possible that we may end up putting in a second redundant switch down the road so we are looking at 12 physical ports in such an instance which seems high. Also is the worst downside to not having a secondary active switch recovery time from a switch failure? We are comfortable with some downtime and data loss in case of a failure of a switch but we wouldn't want to have to reconfigure the entire environment or something. We have some spare switches for failures and will back up the config so we can use them in our main network or in this VM environment. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Jan 8, 2013 |
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Jan 8, 2013 16:03
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KS posted:I assume these are gigabit ports? If they're 10 gbit, you're overthinking it entirely. They are all gigabit. I am only leaving in the FT just in case someone demands it. I think that it will quietly fade away because of all the stupid poo poo required to keep it going. I am of the mind that if we aren't willing to foot the bill for a dedicated secondary switch because downtime is ok, then why would we do things for FT. Changing it to: 1 vlan for vMotion. 1 physical port per host. Private/non routable 1 vlan for FT. 1 physical port per host. Private/non routable *probably going to kill it in production* 1 vlan for guest network/management. 2 teamed physical ports per host. Firewalled/routable 1 vlan for iSCSI. 1 physical nic per host. Private/non routable
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Jan 8, 2013 16:59
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Corvettefisher posted:How many VM's? I think the total number of VMs is around 10-15 max on the 3 hosts with the current number of replaced servers sitting at about 7. It is way overbuilt for current needs hardware wise. No DBs those will still be on separate physical machines and we aren't even close to talking about VDI in any real sense yet. Possibly a web application front end, print server, various file servers that may be consolidated if I can force the right people into line and a couple low resource application servers. I would have liked 10ge but at this point it is not an option as the SAN has 1ge controllers. There were a lot of decisions made prior to my involvement with this project that were not great but I sort of have to just get something up and running from it as it is 1.5 years since initial purchases. I am studying for my VCP and will take the course in March, two weeks after this goes live  .Do you think that 4 hours is the downtime for a switch failure give or take? We were figuring around two hours to get the new switch in, flash config, and restart farm from most important to least. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jan 8, 2013 |
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Jan 8, 2013 18:23
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If you have a VMware 5.1 environment and you need to move the IPs for the vCenter Server installation and the host management IPs is there an easy enough way to do it? In the past I have just recreated the vCenter but I am hoping there is an easier way. EDIT: Also is it normal behavior for it to take forever for a vSphere Client console window to change from black to the desktop? I think it takes 2+ minutes sometimes. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 13:34 on May 4, 2013 |
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May 4, 2013 13:29
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Erwin posted:Has anyone done vSphere 5.1 update 1 yet? I still have flashbacks and cold sweats thinking about 5.0 -> 5.1, but I'm hoping this update is more straight-forward. Hopefully it adds a new more obnoxious credentials management system.
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May 7, 2013 21:03
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Have any of you had an issue with the console on vSphere Client taking forever to refresh and open? Whenever I try to view the console session of my vCenter Server installation, it takes a really long time (sometimes 10 minutes) before it finally displays. I think that I set enough resources except I am unsure about the total video memory and whether that could be affecting it. What would be a good default there for a vCenter Install? EDIT: If I right click, open console, it sometimes comes up much faster but if I wait for the built in, it is terrible. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 15:08 on May 21, 2013 |
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May 21, 2013 14:50
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Goon Matchmaker posted:Known bug if you're on 5.1 with no patches. See http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2037408 Hmm I am not using windows authentication but it is unpatched so maybe I will try patching and cross my fingers.
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May 21, 2013 22:01
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NVM figured it out.
Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jun 1, 2013 |
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Jun 1, 2013 14:44
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Are any of you running ESXi 5.1 on proliant servers? I am trying to install the Management Bundle and it is coming up with valid products of embeddedEsx 5.0.0 and 5.1.0. I am not running Embedded but I am hoping that there is some way to use update manager to deploy these tools anyway. I can't for the life of me find anything about this problem anywhere. Essentially when I go to remediate there is nothing to remediate because I am not using embedded esxi. I don't have an external network connection on these so I have to use offline patches.
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Jun 12, 2013 20:05
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madsushi posted:I run ESXi 5.1 on quite a few DL360s and DL380s (and blades). Typically I forget trying to install the management agents manually and just reinstall ESXi via the HP-branded ISO, which is now available directly from VMware. Yeah I might end up doing that. Is it a super pain in the rear end to reconfigure your hosts? I only have three but I think that I would kill myself if I had to redo 10+. Unless you can reinstall overtop of an existing esxi installation without losing your settings? Could you do it through update manager I wonder?
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Jun 12, 2013 20:37
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Corvettefisher posted:Yeah the view bit of it is where I am hitting head to wall. Does the 20% discount apply to the 5 day vsphere install configure manage course for the VCP cert? EDIT: It does. That is pretty sweet. It is a little odd though that they list the cost for it as 4495 before discount when I have only seen the price of 3195. I hope that I can get 20% off of 3195. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jun 16, 2013 |
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Jun 16, 2013 05:02
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Could someone who has integrated a VM environment with HP Systems Insight Manager point me to documentation on how to go about it? I can push a test alert from iLO to the SIM server and it alerts out to email fine. I can view the physical hosts in the inventory. I can view the extended hardware information via vSphere client connecting to vCenter Server. I can't get alerts when I degrade the power by unplugging a power supply etc. I tried making an iLO account for the hosts that I put into SIM in Options>Power Management and into Options>Security>Credentials>System Credentials... as a sign in credential. I am thinking that this is the wrong tactic. Do I need to add a WBEM provider to vCenter? I was thinking/hoping there was a way to do this on the hardware level in iLO or something so that if there is a total failure of my SAN or something I would still get hardware alerts through iLO. EDIT: I am pretty sure the G8 servers use iLO to push the alerts but I am using G7s in this project. I think I might have found the missing link and am installing Insight Control for VMware vCenter now on our SIM server. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 16:16
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Funny thing I noticed with vSphere. There is probably (hopefully) a good reason for this but: Memory Hot Add allows you to increase the memory pool of a guest OS while it is running. It is OS dependent but on Server 2008 R2 it works great apparently. It is off by default and CAN'T be toggled while the machine is running. So if you don't realize in advance that you might need this feature, you have to restart the guest anyway to enable it.
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Jun 18, 2013 18:14
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Frozen-Solid posted:We're finally ready to pull the trigger on getting vCenter setup, and it looks like all of VMware licensing has changed yet again. I think the features licensing is based on which vSphere flavor you buy. The limitation on foundation is that it supports 3 hosts. No more. If you feel your environment could grow then you don't want it. Free Esxi can't be managed by vCenter Server. Operations Management is a separate licensed product and not sure you would need it for two hosts. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Jun 21, 2013 |
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Jun 21, 2013 13:00
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My lab for the past 2.5 years has been: 3X HP DL 380 G7 servers each with 2X Xeon 5660 (6 cores per; 2.8GHz) 64GB RAM and for storage 2X Dell Equallogic PS4000X with 9.6TB RAW each This is because nobody here knows VMware and it was decided that we needed it and I would have to figure it out. Then other more important projects came up and here we are.  EDIT: I might have mentioned it before but, primary use for the environment? A file server. I poo poo you not. I was just told the other day that I should try to limit the number of guests that go on it to like 4 or 5...
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Jun 26, 2013 20:24
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jre posted:
Normally things are not like this. I think it is because everyone is really old school IT and virtualization is something that they know we need to be moving towards but nobody knows anything about it. Like decision makers don't even really understand the technology at a basic level. My boss goes to talks and poo poo with vendors about technology then comes into the office with his hair on fire about what the next project will be sometimes and this was one of them. I mean it makes sense that we need to virtualize. Our main mission critical application as an example is accessed via citrix. It can only run on 32 bit windows currently so our citrix farm consists of 45 servers with 4gb of ram each... This should have been addressed prior but the environment is in place and has been for 9 years or so. We will probably virtualize all of it in 2-3 years and then things might start moving correctly. The biggest problem with the whole thing for me is that the scope of this first project keeps changing. Like it started as "hey we need two sans in two locations with two VM clusters for redundancy and let's use SRM" Then it changed to a san in each location but the hosts only in one location. Now it looks like the two cluster idea is back again. This time I said no. I said that we need to plan that as a separate project and that this one needs to be put to bed because we need to have an end date. Everything that we do that is non-virtualized is done well with plenty of redundancy etc. but for some reason virtualization has caused everyone to kind of lose their heads. I try to keep the perspective that there is probably very few places out there that I could just be handed a shitload of hardware and be told that to put it together at my own pace with very very little pressure on timelines. The sort of logical side of me though can't deal with it very well.
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Jun 27, 2013 15:14
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Erwin posted:Why not take the ICM course? Obviously your company can afford it. They won't pay for it. They gave me the time instead of the money... I will be taking it myself and getting my VCP and jumping ship as soon as I am done.
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Jun 27, 2013 16:23
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cheese-cube posted:XenServer 6.2.0 has been released and is now completely free and open-source (Unless you pay for support)! http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX137826 Not telling my boss about this because next thing you know he will make me learn Xen instead. My buddy tells me that I should look at OpenStack for future projects and that it is a good technology to get to know as it should take a good chunk out of the VMware market. He has also swallowed the FOSS blue pill so a lot of poo poo that he says is somewhat idealistic. Is it something that I should expect to see more of in a SMB setting?
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Jul 1, 2013 02:37
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hackedaccount posted:Woo, got my e-mail from Jana, asked her a couple questions and here's what she said:
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Jul 9, 2013 05:48
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Goon Matchmaker posted:Well. Deep Security PSOD'd two of our ESXi hosts taking down our entire production cluster. Are such things necessary for ESXi hosts? I haven't put any planning in place for anything beyond the guest OS.
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Jul 19, 2013 20:31
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evil_bunnY posted:Only if you value your sanity. A RAID 5 SAS SAN isn't up to snuff?
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Jul 27, 2013 01:13
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Daylen Drazzi posted:You need to review the class overview and take the quiz I believe. It wasn't that way when I took that course last session. I would email dustin using the moodle email service. He responds pretty quickly.
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Oct 22, 2013 12:41
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FISHMANPET posted:So I'm a little confused about labs for the Stanly class. I just whipped through 10 of them in a 6 hours of reservation. I was worried that I'd have to be jockeying for time to get all the labs done, but if I look for the next few days there are zero reservations. Aren't we all sharing the same two pods in the class? Is everybody just lazy and not doing anything with the class yet? I assume that we have two pods at least, I can only see ICM_POD_241 and ICM_EQ3_POD15. Does it matter which I choose? I am pretty sure they never check if you completed the labs. I took it last session and emailed the dude to confirm that the only things they grade on are the labs and the quizzes the teacher said yes and then offered to reset my environment. I hadn't even finished half way. I got the impression that they probably just mark everyone who completes quizzes as completing and make you eligible to take the test. The reservations are just to ensure that you don't leave it running when not using I think. I have never seen another reservation listed.
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Nov 12, 2013 03:09
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Is the pricing for VMware Mirage pretty firm or is there a bit of wiggle room? I was very put off by retail but if it is possible for a education license at around half per seat I might bring it up as a future project. I know I could just ask VMware but since it is a nebulous thing I don't really want to waste my/their time. I know for things like Workstation it is kind of firm.
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Dec 23, 2013 18:45
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Have any of you used Double-Take Availability for vSphere? We use their availability software withing our server instances for some file servers and a DB server and it works pretty well. Just wondering if anyone had a good or bad experience with their vSphere plugin.
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Feb 13, 2014 15:47
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