Virtualization

VMworld 2013 is now over and its time for a rundown of what went on during this years show. As always, this is THE event that virtualization junkies must attend. This year there was no shortage of things to do. Keynotes, Hands on Labs, Solutions Exchange, VMware Education Services, Blogger hang out, parties, meetings and social gatherings. I wear a Jawbone UP device that tracks my steps and it was not uncommon to hit 20,000 steps each day. Reminders for anyone going next year, that comfortable footwear is a must. ...

I’ve been interested in using twitter’s API to do some analytic analysis of things lately. If you’re interested in this as well, there are several sites that can help you do you’re own queries, or use the Microsoft Office analytic tool. Here are some interesting stats about VMworld. #VMWORLD stats #vExpert Stats I also thought it might be worth looking at where the vExperts call home (assuming geolocation was turned on and accurate, Yes, I’m talking to you Josh Andrews) ...

VMware announced their new product called VSAN this week at VMworld in San Francisco CA. The VSAN is a new offering that will allow customers to provision “shared” storage by using locally direct attached disks. Traditionally, in order to use the features like vMotion, customers had to have an external NAS or SAN device to house the virtual machines. VMware isn’t abandoning the idea of SAN or NAS, but they now have a lower cost offering that can help smaller businesses get more out of their capital investment. Consider disaster recovery scenarios where a company might not want to spend the upfront cost of a SAN that may never (hopefully) be used. This will allow a basic DR plan with less cost. ...

This week at VMworld 2013, VMware’s CEO Pat Gelsinger announced the new features of vSphere 5.5. The entire list of updates can be found in the " What’s New?" file from VMware but here are some of the highlights. Single Sign on was completely re-written. I would bet that the #1 reason that users didn’t adopt vSphere 5.1 release was due to issues with single sign on. VMware re-wrote this code not only fix the bugs, but make the entire experience better. This feature was a necessity for VMware to move forward with the vSphere platform. Additional GPU Support. This may be a big deal for some companies who are afraid to switch to a VDI infrastructure because of limited graphics processors. 62 TB VMDK’s now supported. Bigger is always better… right? This could be a very big deal. I know several clients who got into a jam when they created their 2TB vmdks only to find out that they couldn’t snapshot them or expand the disks any further. 62TBs should suffice for now! :) Flash Read Cache. VMware now natively supports using SSD’s as read cache for specific VMDK files. In the past vSphere could use local SSDs for host cache. This was used to mitigate the issue of swapping to disk. If you have to swap to disk SSD is at least better than spinning disks right? Well now you can use local host SSDs as a read cache for an entire VM or maybe just a single disk. vSphere vCenter virtual Appliance can now support up to 5000 virtual machines. I’m having fewer and fewer reasons to build out an entire VM now. This makes me want to just deploy the vApp and be done with the whole process. Application HA. vSphere has been able to provide virtual machine high availability for a while now, but with the release of 5.5 they can also take action against guest services as well. Additional Announcements VMware NSX will be taking over for vCNS (vCloud Networking and Security). I was told that vCNS will still be available in 5.5 but future iterations would be inside the NSX Product. NSX uses the VXLAN protocols to virtualize the physical infrastructure. ESXi hosts will now be able to manage internal routing, switching and firewalls. ...

In the event that you’re heading to VMworld 2013 in San Francisco, this post should help to prepare you for what to expect. Packing This is a five-day event that will consist of a ton of walking, some bouts of sitting, social engagements, labs, and fun. Packing rule #1 - wear comfortable shoes. Walking back and forth from your hotel, to the conference center for sessions, to the solutions exchange and general moving about will destroy your feet. ...

This post was a direct result of a request from one of my readers. I hope that this post will explain VMware networks a bit more and how they fit into a production network. To begin I’d like to review how a VMware ESXi server might have its virtual switches and port groups setup to connect to a physical switch. Here is a list of networks that we’ll be working with. ...

A few months ago there was an annual vote to determine the top 50 virtualization bloggers according to vsphere-land.com. These top 50 bloggers are then added to the vLaunchPad where they will remain cataloged for a year until the next year’s voting. Kudos to Eric Siebert for running this whole process! TheITHollow.com was lucky enough to make the top 50 in it’s first year of existence and to celebrate I asked my good friends (well, family really) over at www.whateverinspires.com to create a top 50 badge to put on my site. They were happy to oblige and even created a top 25 and also a top 10. ...

Once per year VMware takes time to present the VMware vExpert distinction to members of the community Evangelizing, teaching, helping and speaking about VMware techniques. The annual VMware vExpert title is given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the community of VMware users over the past year. The title is awarded to individuals (not employers) for their commitment to sharing their knowledge and passion for VMware technology above and beyond their job requirements. ...

VMware Resource Pools are not something that should be thrown into every vSphere implementation! I considered not writing this post, because of all of the blogs I’ve seen that have written about this already. If you don’t believe me, check out a few of these: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1512-dont-add-resource-pools-for-fun,-theyre-dangerous.html http://wahlnetwork.com/2012/02/01/understanding-resource-pools-in-vmware-vsphere/ http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/11/13/resource-pools-and-shares/ http://frankdenneman.nl/2010/05/18/resource-pools-memory-reservations/ Unfortunately, I continue to hear resource pools being misunderstood. Don’t get me wrong, these are great tools and have a place in your arsenal, but they are used for a very specific reason. ...

My configuration is listed below if anyone is interested in the details. Similar designs have been done before by both Chris Wahl @Chriswahl and prior to that by Phillip Jaenke @RootWyrm who called them " Baby Dragons". I used their base config and made a few tweaks of my own based on pricing, part availability etc. Part List ESXi Servers - Quantity 2 Case: Lian Li PC-V351B MicroATX PSU: SeaSonic Platinum SS-400FL2 Fanless 400W RAM: Kingston 16GB (4 X 8GB) 240-Pinn DDR3 Unbufferred ECC Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X9SCM-F-O CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz NICs: Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 1000Mbps PCI-Express, SuperMicro Dual Port Gigabit Card Boot: Kingston DataTraveler 101 G2 8GB USB 2.0 Local SSD: 64 GB Intel SSD Flex Server - Quantity 1 (Used for a Hyper-V server, VSA or 3rd ESXi Host) Case: HP Gen8 Microserver Storage: 4 480GB SSD’s from OCZ Storage Array Synology Array: 1- Synology DS1513+ Hard Drives: 5 1 TB Wester Digital Blue 7200 3.5 inch hard drives Networking Equipment Layer 3 Switch: Cisco WS03750G-24T Switch Firewall: Cisco ASA Wireless Router: Dlink Wireless N+ Router ESXi Server Notes: I’m not going to lie, when I saw these cases on Chris Wahl’s lab and had to have them. They look crazy sharp and I love the pull out Motherboard mounting option. There are other components in common but I have a feeling these were copied because of a similar taste for components and budget rather than lust! :) ...