VMware

VMware Workstation 7.1 released

Posted by HStrydom on 01/06/2010 at 8:59 am

VMware Workstation version 7.1 have been released today. Here is some of the new features:

Ubunto 10.04 support
8 way SMP VM

The complete lists is here.

Top 10 Free tools

Posted by HStrydom on 01/06/2010 at 8:33 am

Kendrick Coleman from www.kendrickcoleman.com have created a very cool link with 10 free cool VMware tools.
Check it out here.

HA – VM start retry setting

Posted by HStrydom on 23/04/2010 at 6:34 am

I had an incedent yesterday that had me thinking how long HA will try and attempt to start VM’s on other hosts. After some asking around I got to the answer.
HA will do by default 5 restarts in this order:

Attempt 1 – immediately
Attempt 2 – after 2 minutes
Attempt 3 – after 4 minutes
Attempt 4 – [...]

Vblock2 – Configuration

Posted by HStrydom on 16/04/2010 at 12:58 pm

Following on the Vblock1 config is a Vblock 2 configuration. This configuration scales more on storage and blade chassis than a Vblcok1.
Also note that these configuration MUST be exactly configured in this way otherwise it is not a Vblock supported configuration any more.

Min 4x UCS 5100 Blade Chassis with Max of 8x UCS 5100 Blade Chassis
32-64 [...]

Vblock1 – Configuration

Posted by HStrydom on 07/04/2010 at 9:07 pm

So what is this VBlock all about?
Vblocks are pre-engineered, tested and validated units of IT infrastructure that have a defined performance, capacity and availability SLA.
Currently there are two types of Vblocks, Vblock1 and Vblock2. (I understand that Vblock0 is on its way..soon…). So more on Vblock1 configuration:

2x Cisco UCS 5100 Blade Chassis (Minimum config, max [...]

Lab Manager – some design considerations

Posted by HStrydom on 06/04/2010 at 4:28 pm

I did a Lab Manager implementation a few weeks ago. Here is some considerations that you need to know about:

Only ESX Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus is supported
If you want to use Host Spanning you need Enterprise Plus
Mixed ESX versions inside a cluster is not supported
Hosts must belong to a single Datacenter
Don’t install Lab manager [...]

SRM with Hitachi

Posted by HStrydom on 04/04/2010 at 8:44 pm

Recently I have been involved in a SRM design and implementation using SRM on Hitachi storage.  Here is some of the design decisions we made on this project:

We used a VM for the SRM server. We installed the Hitachi Raid Manager CCI on this VM. Then we presented a “Command Device” from the storage unit to [...]