Back in April I wrote a blog aimed and the differences between ESX and ESXi. The original post was written for ESX 3.5 and with the introduction of vSphere I think it’s about time i have revisited this topic and looked at the pros and cons of ESX4 and ESX4i. Now before we dig into the technical details there is one big thing you should all be aware of. The FAQ page published by VMware states “VMware ESXi is the recommended platform for both new and existing customers. Future hypervisor releases will solely be based on this architecture.”
For most that should be enough said. After reading that I would seriously start rolling out ESXi in a lab and start figuring out how I could maintain my needs without the service console most of us have become to know and love. I would also start brushing up on the RCLI as well as the PowerCLI if you are currently dependent on scripts that run in the service console. The good news is almost everything you do today in the service console can be achieved one way or another with ESXi as well. OK with that said lets talk about some of the other limitations.
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Categories: Cloud Computing, ESX 4, Other, VMware, networking, storage Tags: Cloud Computing, Desktop Virtualization, ESX4, ESXi, vCenter, VI4, virtualization, VMware, vsphere
I went to install the VMware SDK for vSphere 4.0 on to my desktop running Windows 7 64-bit, Visual Studio 2008, and .Net 3.5 SP1 and discovered the SDK setup is not friendly with these versions. According to VMware you need Visual Studio 2005 and .Net 2.0 if you want to run the SDK.
So like most of you reading this I turned to my trusted adviser…google to find the answer I was looking for. Much to my disappointment after 5 minutes of searching around I didn’t find any instant gratification for my problem so I decided to just go ahead and figure it out on my own.
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Categories: Other, Scriptng, VMware Tags: ESX 3.5, ESX4, ESXi, Installation, Script, scripting, SDK, vCenter, VI4, Virtual Center, VMware, VMware Workstation, vsphere
This morning I was informed that DynamicOps is going to donate the use of it’s flagship product VRM for use in the free lab. For those of you not familiar with DynmaicOps VRM (Virtual Resource Manager) it is a workflow automation product that boasts amazing flexibility for managing your virutal infrastructure. It will become the core of the lab. It will control user access, facilitate automatic provisioning of machines threw it’s self service web interface, control the duration of time a user can have access to a machines, distribute lab resources, assign lab moderators, allow for an approval process for requested machines, any many other functions based on it very wide set of features and functionality. VRM will also allow us to scale the lab out and make it very distributed by allowing others to host resources that will be made available to the community lab. VRM is so flexible and extensible that there is nothing we won’t be able achieve. I would like to thank the folks at DynamicOps for allowing us the use of this great tool to facilitate the creation and operation of the community lab, this is going to really make it something great.
I would also like to announce that a good friend of mine Tom Bonanno will be assuming the responsibilities of Lead Developer for the project. Even with great tools like VRM their will need to be a considerable amount of custom development to really make this lab a reality. Tom is a very talented programmer with extensive knowledge around PHP, .NET, C#, VB, and other languages. I’m very excited to have him on the project, he will be a great asset. Tom is also going to be given the ability to blog here on Dailyhypervisor so he can share some of his experiences while developing code for lab.
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I have decided to utilize XenServer5 as the Hypervisor for the First Generation of the Community Lab. I have chosen Xen because to the level of support it has for templates in the free version. Without template support the flexibility of the lab would be compromised and it would hold much value. I would have liked to have had initial support for vSphere but I don’t see VMware donating any licenses anytime soon…..
For storage I will be using a 1TB ReadyNas NV. I’m going to try and increase the storage to at least 2TB prior to opening up the lab beta but for now it will be 1TB. i can potentially add another 1TB using USB drives attached to the ReadyNAS but I prefer to only utilize drives that can be configured for RAID. I don’t foresee NetApp donating storage anytime soon so we will have to rely on home brew solutions until we gain some traction. Alliances like OpenFiler and FreeNas on custom built system with loads of storage is the growth plan at this time.
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As I progress through the design of the first generation of the community lab I need to make decisions on an implementation strategy. Not from a hardware and a virtual environment perspective, but form an automation perspective. Currently I’m looking at a number of community scripts and some of my own to provide automation within the environment. The challenge is creating a well oiled machine that will almost run itself with the help of community moderators.
Ideally it will be self service. A user will come and signup, get approval for an account and then be able to login to a portal where they can then request access to resources (vm in gen 1). From there they would get the resources they need but for a pre-defined period of time. I’m thinking 5 days in the gen 1 version of the lab. At the end of the 5 days the machines will be destroyed and the resources given back to the pool so the next request in the queue can be filled.
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VI:OPS is was a VMware Forum that dedicates dedicated itself to providing information related to operations surrounding a VMware Infrastructure. The “Proven Practice” documents are were submitted and reviewed by moderators before they are published. The published documents allow for peers to comment on the documents.
I made it point to meet Stevie Chambers because he used to be the driving force behind VI:OPS. When he took his helmet with the big red plume and his sword and armored kilt over to Cisco, everything seemed to just freeze at VI:OPS. It took a week to have my last post approved. PMs were not returned quickly. It just died. No gladiator to defend it.
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I will be presenting a session at the GreenIT event hosted by the Philadephia Area VMware User Group this Thursday, November 19th. I am going to be speaking about how VMware affects GreenIT. I will also be describing some of the steps to follow ot make the savings a reality. So, if you are in the Southeastern Penciltucky area, you should be there.
REGISTER NOW: http://campaign.vmware.com/usergroup/ug-signup.php?session=Philadelphia2
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I just stumbled upon a fresh post by Hal Rosenberg, a Performance Engineer from VMware. Its a great doc, titled Performance Troubleshooting for VMware vSphere 4. It has some great flowcharts and steps to take to come to a root cause analysis for performance issues. Although it is written for vSphere 4, much of the methodology applies to earlier versions as well.
Another great job by the VMware Performance Team! Thanks Guys!
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While attending VMworld this year, I participated in Greg Lato’s VMworld 2009 Portrait Project. Greg works days for VMware and freelances as a photographer. I can barely maintain one blog, Greg has two. Latoga Labs chronicles his vocation and Latoga Photography chronicles his art. Below are a couple of great examples of his art. Even Greg can make my ugly mug look pretty good. Add both of his blogs to your feed reader.
UPDATE: Greg posted a portrait of each of the participants on his blog the other day. Check it out here.
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Last week my boss came to me and asked if I could write a script for a customer to register VM’s after being replicated from once VI environment to another. I agreed to take on the project and go for it.
Like everything I do these days I decided to use powershell to write the script. I have taken a liking to it and the fact that I can run the scripts on both ESX and ESXi hosts saves me from having to re-create scripts all the time. So I plugged away to 3am wrote the script, tested it inside out and sideways in my lab. I was confident in the scripts ability to register all vm’s form all datastores I went ahead and sent it off to the customer.
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Categories: Other, Powershell, Scriptng, VI_Toolkit, VMware Tags: Automated Deployment, Disaster Recovery, ESX, ESX 3.5, ESX4, PowerShell, Script, scripting, VI Toolkit, VMware
