2009 Januar 14 » vmwarenews.de

SRM demo video, usage tips: new from Uptime

Allgemein, Site Recovery Manager Kommentare deaktiviert

Jan 142009

Our
new blog Uptime continues to deliver the goods. Two new posts from
VMware’s own Lee Dilworth cover vCenter Site Recovery Manager from the
overview (if you’re still trying to get a handle on what SRM does and
how it replaces that paper DR plan and set of scripts you’ve never
really fully tested) to the first FAQ and set of tips if you’ve been
trying it out.

First, the video. You might recognize VMware Evangelist & VMworld Europe impressario Richard Garsthagen as well, fresh off his first video hit, VMware Infrastructure 3 demo.

Link: Site Recovery Manager Demonstration Video now online!

Next, Lee’s FAQ & tips on SRM:

Link: VMware Site Recovery Manager – “From general release to Update1, what have we learnt and what’s new?”. Lee goes into a bit more detail, but here’s sample question:

Q: What are the SRM failback options we see no button for failback which is
confusing us?

SRM absolutely supports failback and each
storage vendor documents the failback process for their specific replicated
storage configuration. What you have to consider is that without SRM in your
virtual environment you are back to manual and/or home grown scripts for DR you
will no longer have automated Recovery Plans, no offline DR testing
capabilities, and no DR audit trail.

SRM, Site Recovery Manager, VMware

Two new docs at our community site: esxtop, VMFS

Allgemein, Knowledge Base Kommentare deaktiviert

Jan 142009

Two
nice new resources from us are now available in the VMware Communities:
one on esxtop statstics, and the other on VMFS best practices. (See all the community documents here.) I do not know if these will show up in our white paper directory at some point. Hmm, Rod may be right
– there are many places to find technical resources at VMware, and we
need to make sure people can find what they need. I will do some asking
about internally. Hat tips to Tom and Arne for pointng them out.

Documentation on Esxtop | PlanetVM.

Scott Drummond[s] of
VMware has just created a document of the forums that details the
Esxtop command, you can find it here Interpreting esxtop Statistics
this looks like a detailed piece of work that somebody has needed to do
for a while

VMware: VMFS Best Practices « ICT-Freak.nl.

This paper gives a technology overview of VMFS, including a discussion
of features and their benefits. The paper highlights how VMFS
capabilities enable greater scalability and decreased management
overhead. It also provides best practices and architectural
considerations for deployment of VMFS.
You can download the whitepaper over here:
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9276

VMware, Esxtop, Best Practices

Proven practices for SRM

Site Recovery Manager, VMware Kommentare deaktiviert

Jan 142009

http://www.vmware.com

I’ve been seeing lots of chatter about Site Recovery Manager lately. Books, videos, all sorts of good stuff. Tomas Ten Dam is doing a great job of covering a lot of these as well as doing yeoman’s work on his SRM in a Box project; check out his blog for more.

But
today I want to call your attention to some new proven practices on the
still stealth-mode VI:OPS site. Please take a look and feel free to
comment or rate them.

Here are some of the recent docs there: VI:OPS: Community: Availability.

Steps to setup FalconStor NSS Virtual Appliances for VMware Site Recovery Manager
Steps To Create a 2-Site SRM Demo Environment on a Laptop
Steps to setup LeftHand Networks VSA for VMware Site Recovery
Manager Steps to setup EMC Celerra (iSCSI) for VMware Site Recovery
Manager
Steps to setup EMC Clariions for VMware Site Recovery Manager
Steps to setup NetApp arrays for VMware Site Recovery Manager

As VMware’s Greg Lato says, SRM “is the Easy Button for data center level disaster recovery.”

VMware, ESX, Site Recovery Manager, SRM

Latest Updates

Updates, VMware Workstation Kommentare deaktiviert

Jan 142009

These are the changes or updates made to the Guest Operating System Installation Guide since it was last published:

Added VMware Tools Operating System Specific Packages information
to supported guests. See “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5” on page 129, “Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 4” on page 135, “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10”
on page 185, “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9” on page 190, and “Ubuntu
8.04 LTS” on page 256.

Reformatted support for Novell Open Enterprise Server on “SUSE
Linux Enterprise Server 10” on page 185, “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9” on page 190, and “NetWare 6.5 Server” on page 308.

Clarified which version of MS-DOS is supported. See “MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1x” on page 76.

Revised index entries. See the “Index” on page 333.

Incorporated minor edits.

PDF: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/GuestOS_guide.pdf

HTML: http://pubs.vmware.com/guestnotes/

Updates, VMware, Workstation, GuestOS

Exchange on VMware Infrastructure: podcast, webinar, white papers

Allgemein, VMware Kommentare deaktiviert

Jan 142009

VMware: VMTN Blog: Exchange on VMware Infrastructure: podcast, webinar, white papers

A common question that comes up with our customers is, “Can I put Microsoft Exchange 2007 on VMware Infrastructure?” And the answer is “You betcha!”

We eat our own dogfood here at VMware.* See this new-ish white paper: Deploying Exchange Server 2007 on VMware Infrastructure: A VMware Internal Case Study

Join us this Wednesday, Jan 14, for another round of the VMware Communities Roundtable podcast, where a panel of experienced VMware admins come together for a weekly session — usually informative, sometimes funny, occasionally abrasive, never scripted. We have an increasing number of live listeners and chatters from all around the world. If Rod can set the alarm to get up from Australia, and Tom can call in from his hotel room in the UK, you have no excuse for not taking a break from work, so just drop by and say hi.
What: VCR #31. Virtualizing Exchange, Domino, and RIM
When: Wednesday, noon PST, 3pm EST, 8pm GMT, and Thursday 7am in Sydney.
How: VMware Communities Roundtable on Talkshoe.

And if that piques your interest for more, join VMware experts on this webinar the next day, Jan 15: Exchange 2007 on VMware: Technical Case Study. This should be a good one. The webinar does require registration, but I can’t imagine you’re not already getting our email, and you can always opt out.

And finally, here’s a page of case studies and technical resources about VMware as the best platform for Microsoft Exchange. And yes, Microsoft Exchange 2007 on VMware is a supported configuration.

[Update: see also Duncan's post here: Exchange (2007) on VMware ]

–
* Although Mitch Kapor disputes who was first, and perhaps it was a reinvention, most think VMware CEO Paul Maritz coined “eating your own dogfood” terminology at Microsoft.

Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, ESX, VMware Infrastructure

VMware ESX and ESXi 3.5 U3 I/O failure on SAN LUN(s) and LUN queue is blocked indefinitely

Knowledge Base, VMware, VMware ESX Kommentare deaktiviert

Jan 142009

VMware ESX and ESXi 3.5 U3 I/O failure on SAN LUN(s) and LUN queue is blocked indefinitely
KB Article 1008130
Updated Jan. 12, 2009

Products
VMware ESX

Product Versions
VMware ESX 3.5.x
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable

Symptoms

One or more of the following may be present:

* VMware ESX or ESXi host might get disconnected form VirtualCenter.

* All paths to the LUNs are in standby state.

* esxcfg-rescan might take a long time to complete or never completes (hung).

* Error messages matching this pattern are repeated continually in vmkernel:
vmkernel: cpu6:1177)SCSI: 675: Queue for device vml. has been blocked for 7 seconds.
vmkernel: cpu7:1184)SCSI: 675: Queue for device vml. has been blocked for 6399 seconds.

If you look at log entries previous to the first blocked message, you will see storage events and a failover attempt.
Example:
vmkernel: 31:19:32:26.199 cpu3:3824)Fil3: 5004: READ error 0xbad00e5
vmkernel: 31:19:32:29.224 cpu1:3961)StorageMonitor: 196: vmhba0:0:0:0 status = 0/5 0×0 0×0 0×0
vmkernel: 31:19:32:29.382 cpu2:1144)FS3: 5034: Waiting for timed-out heartbeat [HB state abcdef02 offset 3736576 gen 26 stamp 2748610023852 uuid 4939b0cf-c85aa695-158d-00144f021dd4 jrnl drv 4.31]
vmkernel: 31:19:32:29.638 cpu3:1053)<6>qla2xxx_eh_device_reset(1): device reset failed
vmkernel: 31:19:32:29.638 cpu3:1053)WARNING: SCSI: 4279: Reset during HBA failover on vmhba1:2:1 returns Failure
vmkernel: 31:19:32:29.638 cpu3:1053)WARNING: SCSI: 3746: Could not switchover to vmhba1:2:1. Check Unit Ready Command returned an error instead of NOT READY for standby controller .
vmkernel: 31:19:32:29.638 cpu3:1053)WARNING: SCSI: 4622: Manual switchover to vmhba1:2:1 completed unsuccessfully.
vmkernel: 31:19:32:29.638 cpu3:1053)StorageMonitor: 196: vmhba0:2:1:0 status = 0/1 0×0 0×0 0×0
vmkernel: 31:19:32:29.640 cpu2:1067)scsi(1): Waiting for LIP to complete…
vmkernel: 31:19:32:29.640 cpu2:1067)<6>qla2x00_fw_ready ha_dev_f=0xc
vmkernel: 31:19:32:30.532 cpu2:1026)StorageMonitor: 196: vmhba0:0:0:0 status = 0/2 0×0 0×0 0×0
last message repeated 31 times
vmkernel: 31:19:32:31.535 cpu2:1067)<6>dpc1 port login OK: logged in ID 0×81
vmkernel: 31:19:32:31.541 cpu2:1067)<6>dpc1 port login OK: logged in ID 0×82
vmkernel: 31:19:32:31.547 cpu2:1067)<6>dpc1 port login OK: logged in ID 0×83
vmkernel: 31:19:32:31.568 cpu2:1067)<6>dpc1 port login OK: logged in ID 0×84
vmkernel: 31:19:32:31.573 cpu2:1067)<6>dpc1 port login OK: logged in ID 0×85
vmkernel: 31:19:32:31.576 cpu2:1067)<6>dpc1 port login OK: logged in ID 0×86
vmkernel: 31:19:32:32.531 cpu2:4267)StorageMonitor: 196: vmhba0:0:0:0 status = 0/2 0×0 0×0 0×0
last message repeated 31 times
vmkernel: 31:19:32:32.532 cpu1:3973)StorageMonitor: 196: vmhba0:0:0:0 status = 2/0 0×6 0×29 0×0

Resolution

This issue can occur on VMware ESX servers under the following conditions:

* Hypervisor version: VMware ESX 3.5 U3.
* SAN hardware: Active/Passive and Active/Active arrays (Fibre Channel and iSCSI).
* Trigger: This occurs when VMFS3 metadata updates are being done at the same time failover to an alternate path occurs for the LUN on which the VMFS3 volume resides .

A reboot is required to clear this condition.

VMware is working on a patch to address this issue. This knowledge base article will be updated after the patch is available.