My Geek Finds » vcenter http://www.mygeekfinds.com Tech notes, Virtualization, Networking, Gadgets, and Geek fun Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:35:51 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 VMware vCenter ADAM_VMwareVCMSDS Warning http://www.mygeekfinds.com/2011/02/vmware-vcenter-adam_vmwarevcmsds-warning/ http://www.mygeekfinds.com/2011/02/vmware-vcenter-adam_vmwarevcmsds-warning/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:40:13 +0000 Hersey http://www.mygeekfinds.com/?p=675 We migrated/updated our vCenter server from 4.0 with Windows 2003 Server (32bit) on a physical box to 4.1 on a VM running Windows 2008 R2 this week and so far everything has been running smooth and without issues. I did notice that the vCheck script was reporting some warnings in the vCenter log that I had not seen before the migration.

Here is the the warning message:

Active Directory Web Services encountered an error while reading the settings for the specified Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services instance. Active Directory Web Services will retry this operation periodically. In the mean time, this instance will be ignored. Instance name: ADAM_VMwareVCMSDS

This message was being repeated once every minute.

After a bit of research I found a post in the VMware Community which lead me to the fix that is here.

The registry value for \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\ADAM_VMwareVCMSDS\Parameters\Port SSL was set to type REG_SZ and the data for the value was empty. I deleted the Port SSL value, re-added the value as a REG_DWORD with the data set to a decimal value of 636, restarted the VMwareVCMSDS service, and all is well.

Thanks to TheSaffaGeek for this fix.

]]> http://www.mygeekfinds.com/2011/02/vmware-vcenter-adam_vmwarevcmsds-warning/feed/ 1 Migration from vCenter 4.0 to 4.1 – One Geeks Journey… http://www.mygeekfinds.com/2011/01/migration-from-vcenter-4-0-to-4-1-one-geeks-journey/ http://www.mygeekfinds.com/2011/01/migration-from-vcenter-4-0-to-4-1-one-geeks-journey/#comments Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:28:55 +0000 Hersey http://www.mygeekfinds.com/?p=429 When we first deployed VMware back in early 2008 vCenter was not yet supported running as a VM (at least I do not think it was). Since we were new to the technology as a whole I don’t think I would have run vCenter as a VM until we were able prove the stability of it in our production environment. Over the past few years I think VMware has proven itself as being robust and impressively stable so much so that we have virtualized every thing that is not nailed down tied to specific hardware – Exchange, Microsoft SQL, AD, web servers, application servers, etc. Since we need/want to upgrade to vCenter 4.1, it also seems like as good a time as any to go ahead and run vCenter as a guest VM.

Currently our vCenter is on a separate physical box running Windows 2003 with 4 GB RAM and a single 2.66 Ghz dual core processor. The vCenter database is on Microsoft SQL 2005 also running on the same physical box. The hardware we have in place would support running vCenter 4.1 but since 4.1 requires a 64 bit OS, and ours is currently running on 32bit, I am going to upgrade/migrate vCenter to a new guest VM running Windows 2008 R2 64. I am also going move the vCenter database to the new VM (I know it is not necessarily best practice to run the DB on the same box as vCenter but my environment is small and it should work out ok – if not I will move the database to another server at a later date) which is running Microsoft SQL 2005 x64.

The vSphere 4.1 Upgrade Guide available from VMware provides a detailed step-by-step process. This VMware KB article (5850444) also gives an overview of the process of moving vCenter and the SQL database from one host to another.

Here is my basic walk-through of upgrading to vCenter 4.0 to 4.1 while moving to a new server that happens to be a VM.

  1. The new guest hardware is configured with 2 vCPUs, 4 GB RAM, and 2x20GB hard drives (1 for OS and 1 for data). I have installed Windows 2008 R2 and installed all the “important” updates from Microsoft. Microsoft SQL 2005 has been installed and Service Pack 3 has been applied to it. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features has also been installed using Server Manager.
     
  2. Using the SQL Server Management Studio two new databases are created on the new server, one for vCenter and one for VMware Update Manager (VUM).
     
  3. Set up a 64bit ODBC connection to the vCenter database and a 32 bit ODBC connection to the VUM database. Both connections are set up as System DSNs and use the SQL Native Client. To create the 32 bit ODBC connection use the application C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe
     
  4. Note what ESXi host the new 4.1 vCenter VM is running on so you can connect directly with the vSphere client if a console is needed. Stop the vCenter Server service in services.msc on the 4.0 vCenter server. (I also disabled the service).
     
  5. Use SQL Server Management Studio to create backups of the 4.0 vCenter and VUM databases. Then restore the databases to the newly created databases on the new vCenter 4.1 server.
     
  6. On both the 4.0 and 4.1 server copy the datamigration folder from the vCenter iso to C:\datamigration and unzip the datamigration.zip file within the folder. On the 4.0 server run the backup.bat script. This script will create a data directory in the C:\datamigration. Copy this directory (and its contents) to C:\datamigration on the 4.1 server. Note: If you are using the SQL 2005 Express database for vCenter the datamigration backup script will also backup the vCenter and VUM databases.
     
  7. Since we wanted the new vCenter 4.1 server to have the same IP address as the old server, this is the point where we changed the IP addresses of both the 4.0 and 4.1 servers and verified DNS was resolving everything correctly.
     
  8. Connect the CD on the new 4.1 server to the vCenter iso (you will need to connect to the host with the vSphere client to connect the CD to VM unless you did this before you stopped the vCenter Server service – live and learn). Run the install.bat file located in C:\datamigration on the 4.1 server to start the vCenter installation.
     
  9. The VMware vCenter Server installation wizard will run. Follow the installation and make the necessary choices. When prompted for the database select the use existing supported database option and choose the ODBC/DSN (64bit) that was set up for vCenter. Select upgrade the database to 4.1.
     
  10. Once the vCenter Server installation completes the VUM installation wizard will launch. Follow the same process for the VUM installation. When prompted for the database select the use existing supported database option and choose the ODBC/DSN (32bit) that was set up for the VUM database.
     
  11. Once installation completes log in to the new vCenter Server using the vSphere Client install the updated VUM plugin. Check each host for a task – Upgrade vCenter Agent.
     
  12. Test, test, and then test. – I checked the following: DRS/HA configurations for the cluster, perform a vMotion of a VM, Scan a Host for Updates, Check any scheduled tasks, Check logs for any errors, etc.
     

The update went without issue and our vCenter is now 4.1 on a Windows 2008 R2 64bit virtual machine. Will be upgrading the ESXi 4.0 hosts to 4.1 next week.

@jirahcox had sent me the following tweet the night before “@herseyc I had to uninstall Update Manager 4.0 then reinstall 4.1 with a clean db. UM 4.1 over 4.0 installed fine, but wouldn’t scan hosts.”

I did have to reattach my update manager baselines before I could scan hosts. Not sure why the baseline attachments did not carry over in the datamigration/database restore??? But after reattaching them all worked well without having to reinstall VUM. Thanks to @jirahcox for the heads up on a potential issue.

Here is a list of resources I used to research and prepare for the migration:

]]> http://www.mygeekfinds.com/2011/01/migration-from-vcenter-4-0-to-4-1-one-geeks-journey/feed/ 0 VMware Resolution Paths http://www.mygeekfinds.com/2009/05/vmware-resolution-paths/ http://www.mygeekfinds.com/2009/05/vmware-resolution-paths/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 19:05:08 +0000 http://www.mygeekfinds.com/?p=219 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
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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

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