Nuovo white paper da HP: HP P4000 LeftHand SAN with VMware best practices

Hp ha pubblicato un nuovo white paper relatvo alle best practice per VMware vSphere e SAN P4000 Lefthand SAN. Questo white paper contiene informazioni dettagliate sull’intergrazione tra VMware vSphere® 5.0 e le san della famiglia HP P4000 LeftHand.

Il documento presenta linee guida di configurazione, best practice e una sezione di faq relative al deploy di vSphere 5 su Lefthand.
Solutions.

Ecco un rapido sguardo all’indice:

Initial iSCSI setup of vSphere 5
Connecting and using iSCSI volumes
Expanding an iSCSI LUN in P4000
Snapshots, Remote Copy, and HP SmartClone volumes
vSphere 5 Storage Enhancements for P4000
VMFS-5
Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (Storage DRS)
vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA)
HP Insight Control Storage Module for vCenter
Storage I/O Control (Storage I/O Control)
Best practices

E’ possibile scaricare il documento qui

New HP P4000 LeftHand SAN with VMware best practices technical paper

Hp has published a new technical whitepaper about P4000 Lefthand SAN with VMware best practices. This white paper provides detailed information on how to integrate VMware vSphere® 5.0 with HP P4000 LeftHand SAN Solutions.

This document presents configuration guidelines, best practices and answers to frequently asked questions about deployment of VMware vSphere 5.0 on HP P4000 SAN.
Solutions.

Here a glimpse from the table of contents:

Initial iSCSI setup of vSphere 5
Connecting and using iSCSI volumes
Expanding an iSCSI LUN in P4000
Snapshots, Remote Copy, and HP SmartClone volumes
vSphere 5 Storage Enhancements for P4000
VMFS-5
Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (Storage DRS)
vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA)
HP Insight Control Storage Module for vCenter
Storage I/O Control (Storage I/O Control)
Best practices

You can download the whitepaper here

VMware Workstation 8 released!

VMware Workstation 8 was released today.

Here the main news

• Virtual hardware improvement:
• VM can now support up to 64GB ram
• newHD Audio device for Vista, 7 Windows 2008 e 2008 R2 guests
• USB 3.0 support available for Linux guests
• Bluetooth devices on the host can now be shared with Windows guests
• You can now enable Virtual VT-X/EPT or AMD-V/RVI in the processor settings interface: with this feature, you can also run 64-bit guest operating systems inside of vSphere running inside Workstation.
• New user interface: new menus, new toolbar and improved preferences screen
• You can share virtual machines with remote users
• New Autostart feature: shared virtual machines can be configured to start with the host system.
• New feature "Connect to server":  you can connect to remote hosts running Workstation, ESX 4.x and later, and VMware vCenter Server. After connecting to a remote host, all of the virtual machines that you have permission to access are displayed in the virtual machine library
• Upload to ESX/vCenter: you can upload a virtual machine from Workstation to a remote server running ESX, ESXi, or vCenter Server

My thoughts: I found interesting the Autostart feature (no more reasons to not say goodbye to the old VMware Server…) and the integration between Workstation and vSphere. Another feature useful is the ability to run 64-bit guest virtualized on virtualized vSphere: useful for virtual on virtual lab.

Main page: http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/overview.html

Release notes: http://www.vmware.com/support/ws80/doc/releasenotes_workstation_80.html

Rilasciato VMware Workstation 8

Oggi e’ stato rilasciato Workstation 8.

Ecco le principali novita’:

• Miglioramenti al virtual hardware:
• supporto fino a 64GB di ram per le VM
• nuovo device audio HD per sistemi operativi guest  Vista, 7 Windows 2008 e 2008 R2
• supporto a USB 3.0 per guest Linux
• possibilita’ di condividere i device Bluetooth dell’host con guest Windows
• possibilità di abilitare il Virtual VT-X/EPT o AMD-V/RVI sulla vCPU, diventa cosi’ possibile eseguire guest a 64 bit in vSphere virtualizzati con Workstation
• Nuova interfaccia utente: nuovi menu, nuova toolbar e schermata preferiti migliorata
• Possibilita’ di condividere virtual machine con utenti remoti
• Nuova funzionalita’ di Autostart: permette di far partire all’avvio dell’host le VM condivise
• Nuova funzionalita’ "Connect to server": e’ possibile connettersi a ESX e vCenter remoti ed accedere alle VM remote
• Upload su ESX/vCenter: è possibile spostare VM da workstation a ESX/vCenter senza usare altri tool esterni

Direi che le novita’ sono molte e interessanti: personalmente trovo molto interessante la possibilita’ di far partire in automatico vm (cori’ finalmente non ci sara’ davvero piu’ nessun motivo per non mandare in pensione l’ormai vecchio VMware Server…) e l’integrazione tra Workstation e vSphere. Altra cosa che vedo comoda è la possibilita’ di avere guest a 64 bit in vSphere virtualizzati (utile per I lab virtual on virtual).

Per maggiori informazioni: http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/overview.html

Per le release notes complete: http://www.vmware.com/support/ws80/doc/releasenotes_workstation_80.html

ESXi 5.0 – how to install HP bundle via vCLI

As I’ve written on this post, the HP ESXi 5.0 custom image has some issues: given that I think that it’s better to use the VMware iso image. In the VMware iso image the HP CIM provider and the NMI drivers are missing and must be installed. The installation of these modules is easy and is a good way to get used to the new vCLI 5.0 commands.

Note: I’m using the vSphere CLI 5.0 from a Windows machine, if you are using the CLI command from linux or from vMA the esxcli.exe command becomes esxcli. Thanks to @Mandivs for let me clarify this.

Let’s start:

1. Download from HP website the bundles: HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.0 and HP NMI Sourcing Driver for VMware ESXi 5.0
2. Upload the zipfile just downloaded on the ESXi host, for example in the local datastore (called datastore1 in my screenshot)
   
3. Let’s place the host in maintenance mode:
   vicfg-hostops.pl –server –operation enter
   WARNING:  vicfg-hostops does not work with DRS. The default behaviour is suspend Virtual Machines
4. Check that the host is in maintenance mode:
   vicfg-hostops.pl –server <server> –operation info
5. And now let’s install the HP bundles:
   esxcli.exe -s -u -p software vib install -d “[datastore1]hp-esxi5.0uX-bundle-1.0-20.zip”
   esxcli.exe -s -u -p software vib install -d “[datastore1]hp-nmi-esxi5.0-bundle-2.0-11.zip”
6. Reboot host:
   vicfg-hostops.pl –server <server> –operation reboot
7. When the host has fully rebooted, let’s check the installed modules:
   esxcli.exe -s -u -p software vib list
8. And now, exit maintenance mode:
   vicfg-hostops.pl –server <server> –operation exit

And here it is: the Hp bundles are installed.

ESXi 5.0 – Installare i bundle HP tramite vCLI

Come ho scoperto in questo post, la iso di ESXi 5.0 di Hp ha qualche problemino: è quindi preferibile utilizzare la iso di VMware. Utilizzando la iso VMware pero’ vale la pena installare il CIM provider di HP e il modulo per la registrazione degli eventi nmi. L’operazione è semplice ed e’ un ottimo modo per vedere qualche comando della nuova vCLI 5.0.

Vediamo come procedere tramite vCLI 5.0:

1. Scarichiamo dal sito HP i due bundle: l’HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.0 e l’HP NMI Sourcing Driver for VMware ESXi 5.0
2. Carichiamo i due zip appena scaricati sul server ESXi, ad esempio nel datastore locale (nel mio caso si chiama datastore1)
   
3. Mandiamo l’host in maintenance mode:
   vicfg-hostops.pl –server <server> –operation enter
   ATTENZIONE: il comando vicfg-hostops non lavora con DRS e di default le VM sono messe in sospensione quando si manda il nodo in maintenance mode
4. Verifichiamo che l’host sia effettivamente in maintenance mode:
   vicfg-hostops.pl –server <server> –operation info
5. Installiamo I bundle di HP:
   esxcli.exe -s <server> -u <user> -p <password> software vib install -d "[datastore1]hp-esxi5.0uX-bundle-1.0-20.zip"
   esxcli.exe -s <server> -u <user> -p <password> software vib install -d "[datastore1]hp-nmi-esxi5.0-bundle-2.0-11.zip"
6. Riavviamo l’host:
   vicfg-hostops.pl –server <server> –operation reboot
7. Una volta riavviato l’host, verifichiamo che siano installati:
   esxcli.exe -s <server> -u <user> -p <password> software vib list
8. Togliamo l’host dal maintenance mode:
   vicfg-hostops.pl –server <server> –operation exit

Con questo avremo installato I due bundle hp

HP ESXi 5.0 iso image – problema con il cambio di licenza

 

for english version click here

Ho scoperto un problema con il cd di installazione di ESXi 5.0 di HP(5.0_Aug_2011_ESXi_HD_USB_SDImgeInstlr_Z7550_00204.iso): quando si prova a cambiare la licenza si ottiene un messaggio di errore di questo tipo e risulta impossibile cambiarla:

Call “LicenseManager.UpdateLicense” for object “ha-license-manager” on ESXi “” failed.

Dopo aver investigato ho scoperto il colpevole: il file /etc/vmware/vmware.lic file nell’installazione di HP  ha permessi di sola lettura (-r–r–r–), mentre nell’installazione fatta tramite iso di VMware (VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.0.0-469512.x86_64.iso) ha permessi di lettura scrittura piu’ permesso speciale (-rw——T).

Per correggere il problema e’ sufficiente connettersi alla console e cambiare i permessi del file /etc/vmware/vmware.lic:

chmod 600 /etc/vmware/vmware.lic

chmod +t /etc/vmware/vmware.lic

Fatto questo sara’ possibile finalmente cambiare la licenza.

Credo che sia il caso che HP sistemi la iso che sta distribuendo…

Grazie a dcolpitts delle communities di vmware communities per avermi indirizzato verso la soluzione del problema

Update: questa fix era stata mantenuta dopo un reboot, ma dopo uno spegnimento completo, cambi all’hardware e un reboot, questa fix e’ andata persa… Credo che ci voglia un intervento un po’ piu’ radicale… stay tuned

HP ESXi 5.0 iso image – licensing change issue

 

I found an issue with the HP’s ESXi 5.0 installer CD (5.0_Aug_2011_ESXi_HD_USB_SDImgeInstlr_Z7550_00204.iso): when you try and change the license you get an error message when you click apply.

The error message is:

Call “LicenseManager.UpdateLicense” for object “ha-license-manager” on ESXi “” failed.

After investigation it seems that the culprit is the /etc/vmware/vmware.lic file: in HP iso image it is flagged as read only (-r–r–r–), but in VMware ESXi 5 image (VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.0.0-469512.x86_64.iso) it is flagged as read write with special permission (-rw——T).

To fix this, connect to the ESXi console and  change the permissions on /etc/vmware/vmware.lic:

chmod 600 /etc/vmware/vmware.lic

chmod +t /etc/vmware/vmware.lic

Now it will be possible to change the license key.

I think that HP need to fix the OEM install image posted on Software depot…

Thanks to dcolpitts from vmware communities for heading me in the right direction.

Update: the fix survived a reboot, but after a full poweroff, some change in the hardware and a reboot, the fix was lost…I think that a more in depth change is needed, stay tuned

HP VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5 (ESXi)

 

for english version, jump to the end of this post

Per chi usa server HP, segnalo che e’ gia’ disponibile ESXi 5.0 integrato HP: questa versione contiene i CIM provider e i driver specifici per i server HP, rendendo l’installazione su tali macchine piu’ spedita.

Per maggiori informazione e per il download: https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HPVM09

–

If you are using HP servers, it’s now available HP integrated ESXi 5.0 : this image contains CIM provider and driver for HP server so the installation on HP servers is easier and faster.

For more info: https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HPVM09