vSphere Upgrades – vCenter and ESXi

We upgraded our vCenter server on Tuesday AM and all is well so far. Our production ESX servers are still on 3.5 Update 4 and vCenter is managing them fine. We have tested the storage vmotion and converting vmdks from thick to thin – so far so good. The management interface is a little different but I like it. The new inventory views of Networking and Datastores are very handy.

We upgraded our test ESXi server this AM to ESXi 4.0 using the vSphere Host Update Utility. The upgrade went very well. The only real problem we ran into was with an older NIC that was not supported. No problems other than that.

Our test ESX server is a HP DL380 G4 with 2 3.6GHz Xeon CPUs (Single Core) and 4 GB RAM. This is managed as a stand alone server, it is not managed by vCenter.

If all goes well we will probably upgrade production ESX host this Sunday night.

Hope to have at least an overview of what I did at EMC World posted in the next day or so, just too busy right now.

Every vSphere Link You Need to Get Started at vSphere-land

At least that’s what the post says… http://vsphere-land.com/news/vsphere-the-missing-links-every-vsphere-link-you-need-to-get-started.html

Every link or not, there are a bunch of great resources for vSphere 4.

I am just back from EMC World and I have a lot information I will be posting soon about the conference but right now I am going to enjoy the holiday weekend. Have a great one!

VMware Resolution Paths

These are very handy when trying to troubleshoot VM/vCenter/ESX issues. Just identify the path for the issue and read the KBs.

http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2009/05/resolution-paths-published.html
–
Many common tech support issues in VMware products can be solved using what we call Resolution Paths. Resolution Paths are collections of modular steps that can be used to solve tech support issues.

These can be very handy and can save you having to make that call into Tech Support. Click the links below. There’s one for each potential problem area.
http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2009/05/resolution-paths-published.html

Virtualizing Cisco Unity on ESX

Just doing a little reading on the possibilities of running Cisco Call Manager (Unified Communications), Unity, and CRS (UCCX) in a virtual environment.

Cisco actually supports running Unity as a virtual machine guest in ESX. The Desgin Guide is here http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/virtualization_design/guide/cuvirtualdg010.html

Cisco does not support Vmotion, HA, or iSCSI attached storage for a virtualized Unity box. They also do not support a physical to virtual conversion of a Unity server. Hopefully Cisco will support Vmotion and HA at some point.

I also found some interesting information on running an older Call Manager version (4.x) as a VM – http://www.blindhog.net/cisco-install-call-manager-4x-with-vmware/

Here is some info I found on UCCX – http://tannerezell.com/cisco/?p=85

Migrating to vSphere 4

Details on the migration from VI 3 to vSphere 4.

vSphere Update Center

Check out the step-by-step vSphere migration videos.

VMware Launches vSphere 4

Introducing VMware vSphere 4 – The Industry’s First Cloud Operating System http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2009/04/introducing-vmware-vsphere-4-the-industrys-first-cloud-operating-system.html

VMware vSphere 4 Launch Supported by Broad Virtualization Ecosystem http://vmblog.com/archive/2009/04/21/vmware-vsphere-4-launch-supported-by-broad-virtualization-ecosystem.aspx

VMware vSphere 4 Provides “Always On IT” for SMB and Branch Office IT Environments With Low Cost, High Availability Solutions http://vmblog.com/archive/2009/04/21/vmware-vsphere-4-provides-always-on-it-for-smb-and-branch-office-it-environments-with-low-cost-high-availability-solutions.aspx

A random collection of what’s new vSphere eye candy http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2009/04/20/a-random-collection-of-whats-new-vsphere-eye-candy/

VMware Launches vSphere – http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2009/04/vmware-launches-vsphere.html

Yellow-bricks.com has put together a great list of vSphere links: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/04/21/vsphere-linkage/

A Few VMware/ESX/ESXi Tips, Tricks, and How to’s

Just a few quick useful VMware/ESX tips.

Installing VMware tools on an Ubuntu guest

ESX Server, NIC Teaming, and VLAN trunking

Speed up your Windows 2003 Server guests – Disable File Last Access Check

Hidden network adapters when importing to VMWare

Installing Windows XP on ESX with LSI Logic Driver

Moving hosts from one vCenter server to another.

Enable SSH on ESXi

Hope you find them as useful as I have.

Minor Update to RVTools

Version 2.5.1 (April 15, 2009) – Bug fix! Better exception handling on the vDisk and vNetwork tab pages.

Download it here – http://www.robware.net/

Virtualization Blogs that I Read

There are a lot of great blogs out there that deal with VMware, Virtualization, EMC, Storage, Cloud Computing, etc – here are a few that I subscribe to in my feed reader that I read/browse daily.

Some of these are updated often and some of them have not been updated in awhile but they are still full of a lot of great information. I know that there are a lot more of them out there, so feel free to add a comment with your favorite virtualization blog.

Yellow-Bricks – Building blocks for virtualization.

VM/ETC – Go Green with Virtualization. Go UGLY Green with vmetc.com

Virtual Geek – an insider’s perspective, technical tips n’ tricks in the era of the VMware Revolution

Scott Lowe – The weblog of an IT pro specializing in virtualization, storage, and servers

RTFM Education – Beyond the Manual

Virtualization Pro – A SearchVMware Blog

vCritical – Don’t believe everything you read.

Mike D’s Blog – A Technologist and Virtualization Expert

VMwarewolf – VMware Technical Support Discussions

VM Blog – Virtualization Technology News and Information for Everyone

Official VMware Blogs

VMware Knowledge Base Blog – News and announcements from the VMware Knowledge Base Team

VMTN Blog – Virtualization news from VMware and the community of virtualization users, including the VMware Communities and VMTN, the VMware Technology Network.

VM Reference VI3 Quick Reference Card

From installing ESX to VM guest backup the VI3 Reference Card is a great quick reference guide for any administrator working with VMware’s Virtual Infrastructure 3.

How do you grow a VM disk? What tcp ports are need by ESX? How do you change the service consoles IP? How many hosts can you have in a virtual cluster? Quickly reference answers to these questions and more using the guide.

The latest version of the quick reference card can be found here – http://www.vmreference.com/vi3-card/

Download it and keep it handy.

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