Eric Sloof

As an important add-on to vCenter Server, vCenter Server Heartbeat addresses a key enterprise customer requirement – ensuring high availability for vCenter Server itself, monitoring and protecting VMware’s management platform against network, hardware, OS or application issues. By fully protecting the infrastructure, it helps eliminate barriers to deployment of Tier 1 critical applications on VMware by providing high availability for the entire infrastructure. Via Duncan Epping at Yellow-Bricks.com.

My prior WhiteBox suddenly didn’t start-up anymore; the guys over at Alternate did some tests and concluded; the motherboard was broken. They didn’t give me a replacement, but will send the barebone to Asus. I should expect it to return in six weeks! Yes, I definitely made some noise over there and finally got discount on the new model, the Asus V3-P5G45. I also swapped the DVD-DMA for a DVD-SATA, and placed all the other parts into the new box. I pressed the power button with crossed fingers, and the Asus V3-P5G45 works like a charm. I only had to answer some relocation questions when I tried to start the VM’s. So here’s my new shopping list:

• Bare bone Asus V3-P5G45
• Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33 GHz
• Memory GeiL 8 GB DDR2-667 Kit
• Storage  Samsung HD501LJ 500GB Internal SATA 16MB 7200RPM Hard Drive
• Network Intel® PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Server Adapter
• DVD-ROM Samsung SA-D163

Speakers: Jeroen van de Kamp, CTO at Login Consultants and Ruben Spruijt, Solutions Architect at PQR.

More and more people ask advice about the hardware virtualization solutions, particularly in a Terminal Server and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure context. PQR and Login Consultants have decided to compare the various hardware virtualization platforms in relationship to the end-user performance experience using the freely available benchmarking methodology of Login Consultants, VSI. Jointly they will deliver the outcome of the investigations and benchmarks to a broader audience, as part of the joint venture “Project: Virtual Reality Check (VRC)”. Running Terminal Server workloads on virtual hardware is generally not recommended, but recent developments give grounds to a re-evaluation of current best practices. By bench¬marking these and the Virtual Desktop workloads on physical servers and various virtualization solutions, Ruben Spruijt and Jeroen van de Kamp will give you valuable and most importantly unbiased experience and insights.

Continue reading "New VMworld Europe session | Project: Virtual..." »

The past few weeks I’ve been trying to setup a VMware View lab. Time after time I received the same error. The Connection server reported, “Waiting for agent” in the Global desktop and pool view / Desktop Sources tab. This error was caused by the DHCP server running on my internet router.

Finally, after reading the install guide I decided to create a dedicated AD,DHCP and DNS server for the View desktops. VMware View has several requirements in the way Active Directory must be configured:

• An Active Directory integrated dynamic DNS
• A reverse lookup zone
• An integrated DHCP server
• All virtual desktops must be members of the domain.
• The VDM Connection Server must be a member of the domain.

I created an internal only switch and connected the Connection server, the VDI Desktops and the one virtual NIC of the vCenter server. The error disappeared and I’m able to log on to my virtual desktops. 

Lessons learned:

• VMware View requires Active Directory.
• Best practice: Assign a separate domain (or at least a separate OU) for a VDM environment.
• Best practice: Install your domain controller / DNS server / DHCP server inside a virtual machine.
• Configure DNS with a reverse lookup zone.
• Configure DHCP to automatically register computers and PTR records.

iBac Virtual Infrastructure Proxy (iBac VIP) is an Enterprise backup application for VMware virtual servers. It is licensed per ESX or Virtual Center server regardless of the number of processors on the ESX server or VMs that need to be backed up. VIP can be used with any VCB Proxy Server, Windows 2003 Backup Server or the vendor's Idealstor Backup Appliance; this last of which allows backup jobs to be sent straight to removable disk media for offsite storage.

iBac VIP uses the VCB framework to provide a centralized infrastructure for backing up VMware virtual machines on a live VMware ESX server. iBac Server backups are initiated and maintained from a centralized management console that provides logging, scheduling and E-mail reporting. This enables backup administrators to backup every Virtual machine on their network via a Fibre Channel or iSCSI SAN or LAN.

As Steve and Duncan just posted, the full list of VMTN Experts that will join the VMTN Experts Panel / Meet and greet at VMworld Europe has just been announced:

Jason Boche - Boche.net + VMTN Moderator
Thomas Bryant - VMTN Moderator
Steve Beaver - thevirtualblackhole.com + VMTN Moderator
Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL + VMTN/VMUG Contributor
Scott Herold - VMGuru.com + VMTN Contributor and author of VMware ESX Server: ATDG
Wil van Antwerpen - vi-toolkit.com + VMTN Contributor
Gabrie van Zanten - gabesvirtualworld.com + VMTN Contributor
Alan Renouf - teckinfo.blogspot.com + VMTN Contributor
Tom Howarth - PlanetVM.net + VMTN Moderator
Duncan Epping - Yellow-Bricks.com + VMTN Moderator

Lanamark  a provider of virtualization capacity planning and IT assessment software, announced general availability of Lanamark Suite 2009. The new version includes support for monitoring Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX, supplements server information with power consumption, form factor, age and warranty metrics, and simplifies capacity planning with significant user experience and reporting automation enhancements.

This afternoon, I was jammed in traffic again. Luckily I burned the MP3 of the PowerScripting Podcast with Carter Shanklin on a CD and listened to the broadcast in my car. At one point Carter was referring to a new verbose logging option which enables you to intercept the soap traffic between you VI-Client and the vCenter server. This gives you the opportunity to find out how to call the really advanced stuff from PowerShell. Carter used it to fix a bug in a resize command-let. When I finally got home, I had to find out the command options and was staring at one of the most beautiful log files I ever saw, it’s brilliant.

Just start your VI-Client with the following options and you will receive massive output.

VpxClient.exe -log +sd

You can find the log files here: C:\Users\Eric Sloof\AppData\Local\VMware\vpx vi-client.txt

Xtravirt released a breakthrough for hosting ESX 3.5 Server as a VM on VMware Player. Xtravirt, known for their 'VI in a box' methodology whereby a full version of ESX Server 3.5 can be installed within a VMware virtual machine.

Xtravirt's CTO, Paul Davey comments about the great benefits of this new release. "'ESX on Workstation' was a very popular way of providing a learning and demonstration environment for VMware VI3. 'ESX 3.5 on Player' takes this to a whole new level - VMware Player is freely downloadable and utilises thin disk provisioning, so now the entire package is not only free, but incredibly lightweight.".

Paul also goes on to say, "Current indications from the ESX 4 BETA also look very promising for this to continue."

Additionally Xtravirt have written installer software which fully automates the deployment of the VM, making the process as simple as possible.

The white paper with installer can be downloaded from http://knowledge.xtravirt.com/white-papers/esx-3x.html.

View Manager 3.0.1 includes the following enhancements:

• Integrates the ThinPrint Virtual Channel Gateway module so that View deployments can communicate with ThinPrint server. Important: ThinPrint's .print engine for VMware View must be installed on the target print server prior to installing View 3.0.1. Print jobs originating from virtual machines are subject to different licensing criteria on ThinPrint server. In order to provide the print server with information about the origin of a print request, View uses the TPVCGateway module as the print provider.

Continue reading "What's New in View Manager 3.0.1 " »