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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Since VI:OPS seems to have died and the content was gobbled up and reindexed my the main VMware communities site (They miss you Stevie!), I am posting my VCB proven practice here. It is dated, since its last version covered ESX 3.5, but most of it still applies in ESX4. If you have comments or changes that you wish to see, please comment here.
You can get it here -> http://www.dailyhypervisor.com/?file_id=8
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As you already know, I posted a generic VCB Proven Practice Guide on VI:OPS. I refer people to this doc frequently.
A recent community discussion regarding the VCB Documentation was visited by a VMware employee or two and the question was posed: “Could you suggest areas of improvement for this guide.”I posted a lengthy response this morning. This might be your chance to comment on the VCB documentation. I am posting the link in hopes of you responding to the question. Hopefully, the comments are considered.
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A while back I mentioned that VMware Tools would appear to change to a not running status after a VCB Snapshot was taken. Vmware said a fix would be forthcoming in ESX U4. VMegalodon posted on the communities this morning that he is running VC 2.5U3 and ESX 3.5 U4 (Which is probably a bad combination…) and the VMware Tools issue appears to be corrected.
So, what are you waiting for?? Get to upgrading!
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I was “forced” to learn how Powershell and the VI Toolkit works for an engagement a few months ago. Once you learn how powershell works and how the VI Toolkit integrates with Powershell, you will love it. This is coming from a linux guy who sees some of the VBScript stuff and just goes “HUH?!?” If you like VB SCripts, check out this post on Jase’s Place. Back in the day, I knew DOS scripting pretty well and I have learned rudimentary bash and perl scripting. To be frank, Powershell was easy for a knucklehead like me to pick up. I use it frequently to automate tasks in VI3 and the winders VMs it manages.
In my last post, I mentioned that VCB snapshots will cause VMware Tools to appear to go off line, even though they are still running. The fixes were to restart the management services on the host or login/logout of the guest. Restarting the management services on the host could cause issues if someone set up to automatically start VMs on boot. Logging in to the VMs is fine unless you have hundreds of VMs.
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Yesterday, VMware posted a Knowledgebase Article about VMware Tools appearing to go off line after a VCB snapshot is taken. This issue occurs after applying the ESX350-200901401-SG hotfix. The KB Article also says it can occur “for some time after the initial snapshot” on unpatched hosts, but I have never seen it.
The work-arounds are simple: Read more…
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I don’t know how many times I have helped with VCB issues in the past couple of years on the VMTN Forums. It usually falls down to someone not understanding the VM Backup Guide or how VCB works. Honestly, the guide leaves something to be desired. Because of this, I have published a “Proven Practice” guide on VI:OPS to try to clarify things.
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