Need More vCenter Tasks and Events?

Have you ever been looking into an issue in vCenter only to find that the time the issue happened has just dropped off of the bottom of the Tasks or Events lists? Well that's happened to me a few times.

I've just come across something in the VMware Infrastructure Client which I didn't know existed.. and I've been using the VIC for what like seems forever.

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VMware Hot-Add Memory/CPU Support

I've been asked to take a look into the Hot-Add Memory and CPU features which are available with vSphere 4. The concept seems pretty useful and straight forward, but what isn't is the list of Operating Systems that support these features. There doesn't seem to be a definitive list. Either that, or I should have gone to Specsavers?

I've had a look around and I can find two KB articles from VMware: Here, and Here which talk about using Hot-Add on Linux OS's. Another VMware document focused on Microsoft: VMware Guest/Host OS Compatibility Guide There is Jason Boche's great article which he researched and tested himself, And Daniel Eason's summary on Hot-Add.

From these different articles I have taken all of the information and produced the following table which in theory should be all of the OS's which support VMware Hot-Add Memory/CPU.

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Restarting Management Agents in VMware ESX/ESXi

VMware have just released a new KB article 1003490 which focuses on restarting the Management agents on both ESX and ESXi Hosts from Version 3 through to Version 4.

Restarting the management agents on Hosts is often used when you are unable to connect your ESX/ESXi Hosts to vCenter or you can’t connect directly to your Hosts using the VMware Infrastructure Client.

The KB Article explains other symptoms which can be resolved by restarting the agents, it also be contains two video’s, one for ESX and one for ESXi (Shown below)

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VMware Certifies First 2nd Gen CNAs on vSphere 4

Yesterday, QLogic announced that its 2nd Generation, Single Chip, 8100 Series 10Gb Converged Network Adapters are now certified by VMware for ESX/ESXi 4.0. This is key because a number of end users have been waiting for VMware to announce certification for 2nd Generation CNAs since QLogic announced the industry’s first 2nd Gen CNAs in March 2009 with support for only Windows/Linux.  EMC, IBM, and NetApp are already supporting the 8100 Series CNAs today. The combination of QLogic second generation CNAs with VMware vSphere 4 enables customers to attain a higher degree of data center efficiency — an Intelligent Converged Data Center.

The 8100 Series 2nd Gen CNAs are the first 2nd Gen CNAs to be listed on the vSphere 4 HCL. This is key because the 2nd Gen CNAs (in comparison to currently shipping 1st Gen CNAs in the market) offer:

  • 150% higher FCoE performance
  • 1/3 the power consumption
  • Standard PCI Express form factor which enables the adapter to be deployed in any leading rack/tower servers with PCIe x8 or larger slot. Current Gen 1 CNAs are compatible only with a limited set of server models due to its large size.
  • Compatible with the latest released standards for FCoE

Below is the URL with more details on the new certification.

http://ir.qlogic.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=85695&p=RssLanding&cat=news&id=1358476

Real-time view of ESX Logs in the Service Console

A collegue of mine just gave a me a few tips on how to view the logfiles on an ESX Host in Real-time. Normally I would export all of the logs via the VIC or the vm-support command. But this limits me to only seeing what has happened, not what is currently happening.

Using the VMware Infrastructure Client, you can view some of the logs in real-time, but there is only a small amount of logs to choose from.

So how is it done? Read the rest of this entry »

Testing Network throughput between VMware ESX Hosts

web-image-f23fe804058174dd4b4eabfde4bedd8bHave you ever wanted to check your Network throughput between your ESX Hosts? or even between VM’s? Well I needed to do this, and I couldn’t find any straight forward how-to’s.

Having been pointed in the direction of a simple application called IPerf by Simon Gallagher I opted to use the Windows version. I’m not great with Linux, and as this is an open source application, documentation is a little hard to come by. So for me, this post is also to remind me how on IPerf works should i need to use it again.

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Simon Long = VTSP 4

This morning i received this in my Email

VTSP4Cert

London VMware Usergroup 24th Nov 2009

You may or may not know that the next London VMware Usergroup meeting is being held next Tuesday 24th November. I again will be in attendance but this time i assure you i won’t be wearing my bright pink t-shirt, so need to bring your sunglasses.

Here is the info about the Usegroup meeting for anyone who doesn’t know about it.

Our meeting will be held at the Thames Suite, London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 33 Queen Street, London EC4R 1AP, +44 (0)20 7248 4444. The nearest tube station is Mansion House, location information is available here. Reception is from 1230 for a prompt 1pm start, to finish around 5pm. Our agenda is not final at the moment, but looks something like this:

1100 – 1200 (Optional) Powershell workshop – Jonathan Medd (get-tovenue | early) to cover PS one-liner solutions and new VI toolkit functionality
12:30 – 13:00 Arrive & Refreshments
13:00 – 13:15 Welcome & News – Alaric Davies
13:20 – 14:05 Sponsor Presentation – Symantec
14:10 – 14:55 ESX Home Lab/White box setup – Simon Gallagher & Simon Seagrave
15:00 – 15:20 Refreshment Break
15:25 – 16:00 Session 3 – vSphere topics, Guy Chapman, Mike Laverick, audience
16:05 – 16:45 Session 4 – vSphere topics, Alaric Davies, Mike Laverick, audience
16:45 – 17:00 Close
17:00 – Pub

I look forward to catching up with you all there.

Allocated Unlimited Memory…Or Have You?

After doing a range of Memory testing and analysis on a group of Vmware Virtual Machines, the subject of the “Unlimited” Memory/CPU tick box was brought up.

When Resource Allocation’s are setup on a VM there is the option of selecting an Unlimited Limit. It seems as though some people misunderstand exactly what that tick box means.

So i will do my best to try and explain exactly “Unlimited” means.

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Confused by VMware vCenter 4 Performance Counters?

counters

Have you ever gazed longingly into the eyes of vCenter 4 Performance Charts and thought to yourself “What the hell does that Counter mean??”.

Since the version 4 upgrade, vCenter now has an even larger amount of Performance Counters for you to use at your disposal. But what do they all mean?

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