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Im SPECweb®2005 Benchmark toppt die Virtualisierungsplattform die native Performance

München, 17. Februar 2009 – VMware, Hersteller von Virtualisierungslösungen für Desktopsysteme bis hin zum Rechenzentrum, hat einen neuen Weltrekord in Webserver-Leistung aufgestellt. Erreicht wurden diese Ergebnisse auf einem 16-Core-Server, der nach den SPECweb2005-Benchmarks des Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) ®-Konsortiums getestet wurde. SPECweb2005 ist ein Benchmark zur Bewertung der Leistung von World Wide Web Servern.

Der Workload-Benchmark SPECweb2005 bietet Webanwendern anhand von Messungen eine objektive und höchst realitätsnahe Bewertung der Webserver-Fähigkeiten eines Systems. Er wird von allen bedeutenden Anbietern als Basis für den Vergleich von Serverplattformen und ihrer Fähigkeit der Unterstützung des Internet-Verkehrs angewandt. Beim Einsatz der höchst netzwerkintensiven Arbeitslasten des SPECweb2005 für den Leistungsvergleich zwischen dem mit VMware Infrastructure 3 virtualisierten und einem vergleichbar konfigurierten nativen, d.h. nicht virtualisierten Server toppten die Ergebnisse der mit VMware virtualisierten Plattform mit einer SPECweb2005-Gesamtleistung von 44.000 Punkten alle Ergebnisse, die je mit einem 16-Core-System erreicht wurden. In einigen Fällen lagen die Werte über dem je aufgezeichneten Maximum physischer Maschinen überhaupt.

Die SPECweb-Punktzahl ergibt sich aus dem geometrischen Mittel der gemessenen Zahl simultaner Webserver-Verbindungen bei drei unterschiedlichen Workloads. Mit E-Commerce als einer dieser Lasten erzielte der VMware-Server die Unterstützung von 69.525 simultanen Anwender-Sessions. Da ein Online-Einzelhandel faktisch mit einem Maximum von einem Prozent seiner Kunden rechnen muss, die gleichzeitig auf seinen Webserver zugreifen, bedeutet diese Zahl in der Realität, dass ein Online-Geschäft mit der von VMware getesteten Konfiguration annähernd 7 Millionen Kunden mittels eines einzigen physischen Servers bedienen kann. Diese Ergebnisse zeigen einmal mehr, dass eine virtualisierte Umgebung in der Lage ist, Applikationen mit einer Leistung zu unterstützen, die gleichwertig oder höher ist, als diejenige nativer Systeme.

Die Punktzahl von VMware bei dieser praxisorientierten E-Commerce-Workload des SPECweb2005 übersteigt die Zahl simultaner Web-Verbindungen aller je getesteten 16-Core-Systeme. Mit 69.525 Verbindungen wurde diese Konfiguration mit nur 75 Verbindungen überrundet, erzielt von einem sehr modernen 24-Core-System. Für die große Mehrheit heutiger Web-Farmen von Online-Einzelhandelsgeschäften, die aus Dual-Core-, 2-Sockel-Systemen bestehen, ließe sich durch die Migration auf die getestete VMware-Konfiguration die Serverzahl um mehr als 75 Prozent reduzieren.

„Diese neue Marke an Webserverleistung demonstriert wieder einmal die Führungsposition von VMware bei der Virtualisierung jeder Art geschäftskritischer Applikationen“, erklärt Dr. Stephen Herrod, Chief Technology Officer von VMware. „Mit diesen Zahlen, die alle veröffentlichten Ergebnisse mit Hardware vergleichbarer Core-Konfiguration übertrumpfen, zeigt VMware Infrastructure erneut, dass diese Virtualisierungsplattform die extremsten Performance-Ansprüche erfüllen kann, die sich aus Geschäftsapplikationen ergeben.“

Dieser Weltrekord folgt den Ergebnissen einer Testreihe, bei der im Jahr 2008 die Applikation Microsoft Exchange mit VMware virtualisiert wurde, woraufhin die nativ auf 16-Core-Systemen unterstützte Kapazität an Mailboxen verdoppelt werden konnte. Diese Resultate erklären, weshalb Kunden zur Unterstützung geschäftskritischer Applikationen wie SAP, Exchange, SQL und Oracle zunehmend VMware Infrastructure einsetzen, um diese als dynamische, kosteneffiziente und zuverlässige IT-Services liefern und ihre geschäftliche Anforderungen besser unterstützen zu können. Mit VMware Infrastructure lassen sich zusätzlich zu den Leistungsvorteilen gegenüber nativen Systemen die Kapital- und Betriebskosten drastisch senken, die Wartungskosten reduzieren und die Verfügbarkeit und Fehlertoleranz verbessern.

[.....more]

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VMware KnowledgeBase Article – Installing the Performance Overview Plug-In in VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4

Products:
VMware VirtualCenter

Details:

Performance Overview is an optional plug-in available with VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4. If the Performance Overview plug-in is installed, the Performance Overview tab in the VirtualCenter displays a single view of key performance metrics for CPU, memory, disk, and network without navigating through multiple charts.

Solution:

Prior to installing the Performance Overview plug-in:
  1. Copy the VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4 build to the VirtualCenter Server system.

    Note
    : If the contents of the folders vpx\perfCharts (iso) or bin\perfCharts (ZIP) are not copied to the local drive of the VirtualCenter Server, an Access Denied error appears when the install.bat command is run later in the installation process.

  2. If you are upgrading to VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4, stop the VMware Infrastructure Web Access service before upgrading the VirtualCenter.
  3. Install or upgrade to VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4 and start the VMware Infrastructure Web Access service.
  4. Download Java SE Development Kit 6u11, and install JDK 1.6.
  5. Configure the environment variables:
    1. Right-click My Computer and click Properties.
    2. In the Advanced tab, click Environment Variables.
    3. In the System variable list, select Path and click Edit.
    4. In Variable value, append C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11\bin\

      If an older version of JRE is present, run the following command in the command window:

      set path=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11\bin\;%path%

    5. In the System variable list, select JAVA_HOME and click Edit.
      If JAVA_HOME does not exist, click New and in the Variable name, enter JAVA_HOME.
    6. In Variable value, enter C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11
    7. Log out and log back in to the VirtualCenter Server.
To install the Performance Overview plug-in:
  1. In the command window of VirtualCenter Server system, go to the vpx/perfCharts folder, the location where the Performance Overview plug-in is available.
    If you are using the ZIP file, go to the bin\perfCharts folder.
  2. Run install.bat <VirtualCenter_Username> <VirtualCenter_Password>
Note:

Product Versions:
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x

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heise online – 26.02.09 – VMworld: Cloud-Initiative für virtuelle Zentren

Vmwares vCloud
Konkretes zum Cloud Computing legte VMware auf den Tisch. Zur vCloud-Initiative haben sich inzwischen rund 35 Partner zusammengefunden, unter denen eine Reihe namhafter aus der IT- und Telko-Branche zu finden sind wie die British Telekom, Cisco, Dell, EMC, F5, Fujitsu-Siemens, Intel, NEC, Netapp, Siemens, Sun Microsystems und T-Systems.

Auf Grundlage ihrer vMotion-Technik, die das Verlagern virtueller Systeme im Rechnerverbund erlaubt, wollen die Entwickler bei VMware „Long Distance vMotion“ realisieren. Damit wären Betreiber in der Lage, komplette Datacenter im laufenden Betrieb von einem an einen anderen Ort umziehen zu lassen.

Auf der administrativen Seite soll es ein vCloud-Plug-in für vCenter geben. Verantwortliche können dann mit dem vCenter Server nicht nur mehrere Datacenter, sondern auch mehrere Clouds verwalten und überwachen. Außerdem wären sie in der Lage, eine VM bei Bedarf per Drag & Drop von ihrem Standort in eine Cloud zu verschieben.

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heise online – 25.02.09 – VMworld: Technische Details zu VMwares vSphere

Module des Virtual Data Center OS von VMware
VMwares CTO Stephen Herrod stellte in seinem Vortrag auf der VMworld zahlreiche neue technische Details vor:

vCompute, Teil des Virtual Datacenter OS, setzt für virtuelle Maschinen (VM) in der vSphere – bis dato Virtual Infrastructure (VI) – neue Maßstäbe: eine VM kann mit bis zu acht virtuellen CPUs und 256 GByte Hauptspeicher ausgestattet sein. Im vStorage, der zweiten Kernstruktur der vSphere, dürfen SAN-Hersteller ihre Produkte via Plug-ins direkt einbinden, sodass die Administratoren Thin-Provisioning-Details (Speicherzuweisung) an einem einzigen Punkt verwalten und konfigurieren können.

Für das vNetwork stellte Herrod den Distributed Switch vor – einen transparenten Switch, der sich über die ESX Server legt und sie als eine einheitliche Struktur für die Netzdienste darstellt. Andere Hersteller können dessen Funktionen erweitern, indem sie mit eigenen Plug-ins andocken. Als Beispiel nannte Herrod das vielbeachtete Switch-Plug-in Nexus 1000V von Cisco.

Anwender können Policies auf ihre VMs anwenden, etwa um spezielle Regeln für Verfügbarkeit, Sicherheit oder SLAs (Service Level Agreements) zu definieren.

Zur Availability stellt VMware ein lang erwartetes Mittel gegen Hardware-Desaster in hochverfügbaren Umgebungen vor: VMware Fault Tolerance. Es repliziert eine virtuelle Maschine im laufenden Betrieb auf einen anderen ESX Server. Die replizierte VM führt zeitgleich dieselben Instruktionen aus, ein Verfahren, das von physischen Systemen wie den ftServern von Bull oder Stratus her bekannt ist.

Hinter vShield Zones für den Sicherheitsbereich verbirgt sich die virtuelle Firewall-Appliance-Technik, die sich VMware im Oktober 2008 durch die Übernahme von Blue Lane einverleibt hatte. Man kann Sicherheitszonen für eine virtuelle Maschine anlegen, die gelten, wo auch immer diese gerade läuft. Insbesondere für Systeme, die üblicherweise in einer DMZ oder besonders gesicherten Netzwerkumgebung stehen, eine feine Sache.

Beim vCenter kam ein lange Zeit von Anwendern kritisierter Missstand zur Sprache: Der Single Point of Failure. Ein neues Feature namens vCenter Server Heartbeat schließt diese Lücke: Ein passiver vCenter Server kann beim Ausfallen des aktiven sofort einspringen. Auf einen weiteren Kritikpunkt hat VMware ebenfalls reagiert: Mit vCenter Host Profiles lassen sich Hardware-Einstellungen des physischen Servers im vCenter Server global konfigurieren. Auf Knopfdruck kann man diese Einstellungen auf neue ESX Server übertragen.

Die neuen Versionen der Module von vSphere sollen noch in diesem Jahr verfügbar sein, einen großen Teil hatte VMware bereits auf der vorigen VMworld in Las Vegas im September 2008 als “ready” gekennzeichnet (siehe Bild)

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Via VMware Newsletter

We are pleased to inform you that VMware® vCenter 2.5 Update 4 (English and localized) is generally available as of late night Feb 23, 2009.

This update release primarily fixes some important known issues, and further improves the quality and customer experience with respect to VMware vCenter.

For details regarding the new fixes, please refer to the release notes at: http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/vi3_vc25u4_rel_notes.html (vCenter 2.5 Update 4).

WHAT’S NEW
Guest Operating System Customization Improvements – vCenter now supports customization of Windows Server 2008 guest operating systems.

Performance Overview Charts – vCenter 2.5 Update 4 introduces the Performance Overview plug-in, which provides a single view of key performance metrics for CPU, memory, disk, and network without having to navigate through multiple charts. The aggregated charts show high-level summaries of resource distribution.

To install the Performance Overview plug-in, see Installing the Performance Overview Plug-In in vCenter 2.5 Update4 (KB 1008296).

RESOLVED ISSUES
Specifically, here are some excerpts from the Release Notes “Resolved issues” section:

Storage Information Displayed for ESX Server that Access Shared LUNs Is Now Accurate
When two or more ESX Server hosts access shared LUNs by using different device path numbers for host bus adapters (HBA), the Storage pane in the Configuration tab of vCenter Server displays accurate properties of the LUNs used by an ESX Server host.

In Addition to Virtual Machine Heartbeats the Virtual Machine Monitoring Service Monitors a Virtual Machine’s Disk and Network Activity
In previous releases of vCenter, in an HA-enabled cluster that has the virtual machine monitoring feature enabled with high monitoring sensitivity, the virtual machine monitoring service monitors only the heartbeats of virtual machine. When VMware tools is being upgraded on a virtual machine, although the virtual machine is still functioning properly, it stops sending heartbeats causing the virtual machine monitoring service to restart the virtual machine unnecessarily. The vmware.log file displays the following message: TOOLS INSTALL cancelling tools installation
Starting with this release, to avoid unnecessary restart of virtual machines, the virtual machine monitoring service also monitors a virtual machine’s disk and network activity. If no heartbeats are received within the failure interval, the virtual machine is not restarted unless there was also no disk or network activity for a predetermined I/O stats interval.

ESXi Server Installations Run Out of Inodes and Stop Responding to the vCenter Server
In previous releases, when an ESXi Server host in an HA-enabled cluster is isolated from the vCenter network and reconnected back to the vCenter network, after a while no free inodes might be available for the ESXi Server and the ESXi Server host might stop responding to the vCenter Server and the VI Client. This issue is resolved.

vCenter 2.5 Update 4 is available for download at http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/.

*** For details regarding compatibility, please view
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_compat_matrix.pdf ***

Thanks,
VMware Infrastructure Product Management Team

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ESX Scripted Installer is Disabled

Description:
 ESX Server Scripted Installer is disabled

Following an installation of ESX Server 3.0.x you must manually enable the ESX Server Scripted Installer functionality from the ESX servers console. If you do not, you will not be able to use the Web Access component to create installation scripts.

The ESX Server Scripted Installer can be found via your internet browser by going to the address https://<host_ip_address>. You will be presented with the screen shown below.

ESX Web Interface
Click to Enlarge Thumbnail

When you click the Log In To Script Installer link, you are presented with the following error 

Error Message
Click to Enlarge Thumbnail

To fix this problem you will need to login as ‘root’ to the console of your ESX host and edit a file. By default the scripted installer applet is disabled - to enable it follow the process below:

 1. Log in to the console using your root account

 2. Using VI or NANO open the following file /usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.17/webapps/ui/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml

 3. We need to comment out and un-comment some lines. Luckily they are in the same section. You need to find the scripted install handler section.

 4. I have marked in red the line of code we need to comment out and the section to un-comment in blue, in the picture below.

To comment out the line, we use the <!– to start the comment and close the comment using –>

/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.17/webapps/ui/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml
Click to Enlarge Thumbnail

5. In the screenshot below you can see the changes we have made to the section. Save the changes and exit the editor.

/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.17/webapps/ui/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml
Click to Enlarge Thumbnail

6. To have our changes take effect the configuration file needs to be re-read by the web server so we will need to restart the webAccess service.

Enter service vmware-webAccess restart to restart the webAccess service

Once restarted we should see two [ OK ] messages as confirmation that everything restarted ok.

Service Restart
Click to Enlarge Thumbnail

7. If we now navigate to the https://<host_ip_address> address and click the Log In To Script Installer link, you will now be able to access the web applet correctly as per the image below.

Scripted Web Installer
Click to Enlarge Thumbnail

The above method is also documented in the VMware Installation guide, which can be found at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_installation_guide.pdf

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For our datacenter core/edge SAN fabric redesign planning, Brocade sent me a Secure SAN Zoning Best Practices document which I thought I’d pass along because it has some good information in it.  Although this document contains the Brocade name throughout, the principles can be applied to any vendor’s SAN fabric.  Please keep these best practices in mind when designing and configuring SAN fabrics for your VMware virtual infrastructure.

Here’s the summary:

Sumary
Zoning is the most common management activity in a SAN. To create a solid foundation for a
new SAN, adopt a set of best practices to ensure that the SAN is secure, stable, and easy to
manage.

The following recommendations comprise the Zoning best practices that SAN administrators
should consider when implementing Zoning.

  • Always implement Zoning, even if LUN Masking is being used.
  • Always persistently disable all used ports to increase security and avoid potential problems.
    Use pWWN identification for all Zoning configuration unless special circumstances require
    D,P identification (for example, FICON).
  • Make Zoning aliases and names only as long as required to allow maximum scaling (in very
    large fabrics of 5000+ ports for Fabric OS 5.2.0+).
  • All Zones should use frame-based hardware enforcement.
  • Use Single Initiator Zoning with separate zones for tape and disk traffic if an HBA is
    carrying both types of traffic.
  • Implement default zone –noaccess for FOS fabrics.
  • Abandon inaccurate Zoning terminology and describe Zoning by enforcement method and
    identification type.
  • Use the free Brocade SAN HealthTM software and the Fabric OS command zone -validate to
    validate the Zoning configurations.

Download the full document here.

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Learn how to utilize VMware so you can save your company money this year from Train Signal! All virtualization training videos are 25% off during February 2009 using the checkout code BOCHENET. Click here for details!

SAN zoning best practices

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VMware ESX/ESXi 3.5.0 Update 3 introduced a bug whereby planned or unplanned pathing changes in a multipathed SAN LUN while VMFS3 metadata is being written can cause communication to the SAN LUN(s) to hault, resulting in the loss of virtual disk access (.vmdk) for VMs.  The issue is documented in full in VMware KB article 1008130.

A patch is now available in VMware KB article 1006651 which resolves the issue above as well as several others.

For users on ESX/ESX 3.5.0u3, I highly recommend applying this patch as soon as possible.

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Critical ESX/ESXi 3.5.0 Update 3 patch released

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Train Signal is offering an astounding 25% off any virtualization product they sell through the month of February 2009.

Here is a short sample of their VMware ESX training video where instructor David Davis talks about templates and cloning virtual machines:

To take advantage of the 25% off, use the code BOCHENET at checkout.

I know first hand that the economy is tough.  Take advantage of this offer and get top shelf training for your dollar.  Train Signal offers a 90 day money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied.

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Train Signal training discount through the month of February

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 I think this would be a neat gig, and probably somewhat stressful.  All infrastructure components from simple to the most advanced must be monitored thoroughly and must not be overlooked.  And hey, virtualization is involved which is a plus.  It’s too bad they don’t specify what flavor of virtualization.  Inquiring minds would like to know.  How about it Computerworld?

January 30, 2009 (Computerworld) The National Football League is fielding three teams for Sunday’s Super Bowl. The first two are well known: the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals. The third, more anonymous one is the 17-member IT staff that the NFL has assigned to work in Tampa, Fla., the site of this year’s game.

That team was tasked with creating a complete IT operation for Super Bowl XLIII in a matter of weeks. Its coaches are Joe Manto, the NFL’s vice president of IT, and Jon Kelly, the league’s director of infrastructure computing. Their opponent is the same one that IT managers face everywhere: anything that can threaten system availability and uptime.

It doesn’t help matters that one of the four IBM BladeCenter S systems being used in Tampa is located on a wood floor in a tent that lacks any climate control capabilities. But so far, so good – and with the four BladeCenter boxes at different locations, and virtualization software ready to provide redundancy, neither Manto nor Kelly seems all that worried.

“It’s very exciting for IT guys,” Manto said of the experience of setting up a systems infrastructure for the Super Bowl. It’s unlike most IT projects, which involve creating systems that will provide ongoing support to users. Instead, the seven-day-a-week effort in Tampa has a short life span and a clear and unmovable deadline.

“That game is going to kick off on Sunday no matter what happens,” Manto said. And by Tuesday, the IT equipment will be disassembled, packed and shipped out of Tampa. “It’s really an open-and-closed operation, which is sort of unique in the IT world,” he said.

The IT staff has set up systems in a hotel to support business operations for about 200 NFL employees who are on-site in Tampa. It also has also built a tech operation at the convention center in Tampa to support 3,500 media representatives who are covering the event; that setup includes wireless networking and automated access to NFL data.

Another system will manage the credentialing of up to 25,000 people – everyone from construction workers to halftime performers. In addition, about 300 PCs have been networked together.

This is the first year that the NFL has completely turned over its server processing workload for the Super Bowl to blade systems. Each BladeCenter chassis includes two blade servers, each with a pair of sockets for quad-core chips. In the past, the league would bring “tens of servers” to the game to provide IT support, Kelly said.

Manto said he will be able to watch parts of the game, primarily on TV monitors, as he moves around Raymond James Stadium in Tampa checking on system operations. But for the most part, Sunday will be a 14-hour workday for the IT staff. “Our main goal,” he said, “is to make sure that everything about this event is accomplished professionally and in a way that gives the fans the best possible experience.”

 Article above originally posted here.

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NFL’s Super Bowl IT team gets ready for game day

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Another VMware virtual infrastructure backup option. Options are good! This product works with both ESX as well as ESXi (requires VCB).

Licensing: One license ($5,495) covers all VMs and ESX hosts. Comparably speaking, another 3rd party virtualization management vendor charges approximately $500 per ESX/ESXi host CPU socket and also requires VCB for ESXi hosts. VCB licensing aside, in this comparison, iBac becomes attractive for infrastructures having 5+ 2-socket hosts, or 3+ 4-socket hosts (thankfully we don’t get dinged for multi core processors yet – who will be the first brave vendor, after Oracle, to license this way?)

From Idealstor:

“Idealstor, a leading developer of disk-to-disk backup solutions, announced today the release of iBac VIP for VMware Virtual Center. iBac VIP for Virtual Center was created to simplify VMware backups by offering a single license that backs up every virtual machine regardless of how many ESX hosts have been implemented.

Nandan Arora – Chief Technology Offer at Idealstor is quoted in this release

“Virtualization offers a unique set of tools that enables companies to consolidate servers but also to quickly provision new server instances as needed without having to incur the costs of implementing a physical server. Most software companies on the market today ignored this and released VMware backup solutions that are tied to the number of virtual machines, physical processors or ESX hosts running on the network. iBac VIP for Virtual Center was designed to turn this licensing model upside down. VIP for Virtual Center lets you backup any number of virtual machines regardless of the number of processors or ESX hosts being run.”Idealstor, a leading developer of disk-to-disk backup solutions, announced today the release of iBac VIP for VMware Virtual Center. iBac VIP for Virtual Center was created to simplify VMware backups by offering a single license that backs up every virtual machine regardless of how many ESX hosts have been implemented.

“iBac VIP was launched in 2008 and offers an enterprise backup solution for VMware virtual servers. The goal of iBac VIP was to offer an easy to use and easy to license backup solution for VMware virtual environments. The original release of iBac VIP was licensed based on the number of ESX hosts that were being run regardless of the number of VMs or processors on the host server. With the release of iBac VIP for Virtual Center, Idealstor seeks to further simplify VMware backups by offering backup administrators the options to choose between licensing the product per ESX host or Virtual Center. Suggested retail price for iBac VIP for Virtual Center is $5495.00.

iBac VIP ties into the VCB framework provided by VMware. Rather than having to run scripts or purchase expensive backup agents to backup each virtual machine, iBac VIP offers an easy use interface that allows backups administrators to efficiently manage their VMware backups. VIP backups can be managed from the proxy/backup server or from a remote machine running the VIP management console. Scheduling, advanced logging and email reports are available for all backup jobs. Recovery can be done at the file level or entire virtual machines can be recovered on the proxy or a specific ESX host.

“When we entered the VMware backup market we realized that most backup vendors were ignoring the flexibility and cost savings that were inherent to virtualization”, said Nandan Arora, chief technical officer at Idealstor. “Virtualization offers a unique set of tools that enables companies to consolidate servers but also to quickly provision new server instances as needed without having to incur the costs of implementing a physical server. Most software companies on the market today ignored this and released VMware backup solutions that are tied to the number of virtual machines, physical processors or ESX hosts running on the network. iBac VIP for Virtual Center was designed to turn this licensing model upside down. VIP for Virtual Center lets you backup any number of virtual machines regardless of the number of processors or ESX hosts being run. The only limitation is that the backup proxy server will need to be able to handle the load, but we feel that iBac VIP is affordable enough that if another proxy server needs to be added to handle the load, we will still be far more competitive than the existing players in the VMware backup space.”

About Idealstor
Idealstor manufactures removable/ejectable disk backup systems that are designed to augment or completely replace tape as backup and offsite storage media. The Idealstor Backup Appliance has been on the market for over 5 years offering a fast, reliable and portable alternative to tape based backup systems. Each Idealstor system uses industry standard SATA disk as the target for backup data and as offsite media. Systems range from 1 removable drive up to 8 and can be used by a range of businesses from SMB to corporate data centers. Disk capacities mirror that of the major SATA manufacturers. Uncompressed capacities of 200GB, 320GB, 400GB, 500GB, 750GB, 1TB and 1.5TB are currently available.”

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New product launch: iBac VIP for VMware Virtual Center

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Memory over commit is a money/infrastructure saving feature that fits perfectly within the theme of two of virtualization’s core concepts: doing more with less hardware, and helping save the environment with greenness. While Microsoft Hyper-V offers no memory over commit or page sharing technologies, VMware has understood the value in these technologies long before VI3. I’ve mentioned this before – if you haven’t read it yet, take a look at Carl Waldspurger’s 2002 white paper on Memory Resource management in VMware ESX Server.

One of VMware’s memory over commit technologies is called Idle Memory Tax. IMT basically allows the VMKernel to reclaim unused guest VM memory by assigning a higher “cost value” to unused allocated shares. The last piece of that sentence is key – did you catch it? This mechanism is tied to shares. When do shares come into play? When there is contention for physical host RAM allocated to the VMs. Or in short, when physical RAM on the ESX host has been over committed – we’ve granted more RAM to guest VMs than we actually have on the ESX host to cover at one time. When this happens, there is contention or a battle for who actually gets the physical RAM. Share values are what determine this. I don’t want to get too far off track here as this discussion is specifically on Idle Memory Tax, but shares are the foundation so they are important to understand.

Back to Idle Memory Tax. Quite simply it’s a mechanism to take idle/unused memory from guest VMs that are hogging it in order to give that memory to another VM where it’s more badly needed. Sort of like Robin Hood for VI. By default this is performed using VMware’s balloon driver which is the more optimal of the two available methods. Out of the box, the amount of idle memory that will be reclaimed is 75% as configured by Mem.IdleTax under advanced host configuration. The VMKernel polls for idle memory in guest VMs every 60 seconds. This interval was doubled from ESX2.x where the polling period was every 30 seconds.

Here’s a working example of the scenario:

  • Two guest VMs live on an ESX/ESXi host with 8GB RAM
  • Each VM is assigned 8GB RAM and 8,192 shares. Discounting memory overhead, content based page sharing, and COS memory usage, we’ve effectively over committed our memory by 100%
  • VM1 is running IIS using only 1GB RAM
  • VM2 is running SQL and is request the use of all 8GB RAM
  • Idle Memory Tax allows the VMKernel to “borrow” 75% of the 7GB of allocated but unused RAM from VM1 and give it to VM2.  25% of the unused allocated RAM will be left for the VM as a cushion for requests for additional memory before other memory over commit technologies kick in

Here are the values under ESX host advanced configuration that we can tweak to modify the default behavior of Idle Memory Tax:

  • Mem.IdleTax – default: 75, range: 0 to 99, specifies the percent of idle memory that may be reclaimed by the tax
  • Mem.SamplePeriod – default: 60 in ESX3.x 30 in ESX2.x, range: 0 to 180, specifies the polling interval in seconds at which the VMKernel will scan for idle memory
  • Mem.IdleTaxType – default: 1 (variable), range: 0 (flat – use paging mechanism) to 1 (variable – use the balloon driver), specifies the method at which the VMKernel will reclaim idle memory. It is highly recommended to leave this at 1 to use the balloon driver as paging is more detrimental to the performance of the VM

VMware recommends that changes to Idle Memory Tax are not necessary, or even appropriate. If you get into the situation where Idle Memory Tax comes into play, you need to question the VMs that have large quantities of allocated but idle memory. Rather than allocating more memory to the VM than it needs, thus wrongly inflating its share value, consider reducing the allocated amounts of RAM to those VMs.

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Idle Memory Tax

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Open up the service console on your ESX host and run the esxtop command.  You may already know that while in esxtop, interactively pressing the c, m, d, and n keys changes the esxtop focus to each of the four food groups:  CPU, Memory, Disk, and Network respectively, but did you know there are more advanced views for drilling down to more detailed information?

For example, we already know pressing the d key provides disk information from the adapter level which contains rolled up statistics from all current activity on the adapter:

1-28-2009 1-22-17 AM

 

Now try these interactive keys:

Press the u key to view disk information from the device level – this shows us statistics for each LUN per adapter:

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Press the v key to view disk information from the VM level – the most granular level esxtop provides:

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There’s also a key, when looking at CPU statistics, which will expand a VM showing the individual processes that make up that running VM.  Can you find it?  This will come in handy if you ever find yourself in the situation where you need to kill a VM from the service console.

If you would like to view the complete documentation for esxtop (known as man pages in the *nix world), use the command man esxtop in the service console.

ESXTOP is powerful tool whos capabilities extend quite a bit farther than what I’ve briefly talked about here.  I hope to see it in future versions of ESX (and ESXi).

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ESXTOP drilldown

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I’ve been using Openfiler 2.2 iSCSI in the lab for a few years with great success as a means for shared storage. Shared storage with VMware ESX/ESXi (along with the necessary licensing) allows us great things like VMotion, DRS, HA, etc. I’ve recently been kicking the tires of Openfiler 2.3 and have been anxious to implement partly due to the ease in its menu driven NIC bonding feature which I wanted to leverage for maximum disk I/O throughput.

Coincidentally, just yesterday a few of the big brains in the storage industry got together and published what I consider one of the best blog entries in the known universe. Chad Sakac and David Black (EMC), Andy Banta (VMware), Vaughn Stewart (NetApp), Eric Schott (Dell/EqualLogic), Adam Carter (HP/Lefthand) all conspired.

One of the iSCSI topics they cover is link aggregation over Ethernet. I read and re-read this section with great interest. My current swiSCSI configuration in the lab consists of a single 1Gb VMKernel NIC (along with a redundant failover NIC) connected to a single 1Gb NIC in the Openfiler storage box having a single iSCSI target with two LUNs. I’ve got more 1Gb NICs that I can add to the Openfiler storage box, so my million dollar question was “will this increase performance?” The short answer is NO with my current configuration. Although the additional NIC in the Openfiler box will provide a level of hardware redundancy, due to the way ESX 3.x iSCSI communicates with the iSCSI target, only a single Ethernet path will be used for by ESX to communicate to the single target backed by both LUNs.

However, what I can do to add more iSCSI bandwidth is to add the 2nd Gb NIC in the Openfiler box along with an additional IP address, and then configure an additional iSCSI target so that each LUN is mapped to a separate iSCSI target.  Adding the additional NIC in the Openfiler box for hardware redundancy is a no brainer and I probably could have done that long ago, but as far as squeezing more performance out of my modest iSCSI hardware, I’m going to perform some disk I/O testing to see if the single Gb NIC is a disk I/O bottleneck.  I may not have enough horsepower under the hood of the Openfiler box to warrant going through the steps of adding additional iSCSI targets and IP addressing.

A few of the keys I extracted from the blog post are as follows:

“The core thing to understand (and the bulk of our conversation – thank you Eric and David) is that 802.3ad/LACP surely aggregates physical links, but the mechanisms used to determine the whether a given flow of information follows one link or another are critical.

Personally, I found this doc very clarifying.: http://www.ieee802.org/3/hssg/public/apr07/frazier_01_0407.pdf

You’ll note several key things in this doc:

* All frames associated with a given “conversation” are transmitted on the same link to prevent mis-ordering of frames. So what is a “conversation”? A “conversation” is the TCP connection.
* The link selection for a conversation is usually done by doing a hash on the MAC addresses or IP address.
* There is a mechanism to “move a conversation” from one link to another (for loadbalancing), but the conversation stops on the first link before moving to the second.
* Link Aggregation achieves high utilization across multiple links when carrying multiple conversations, and is less efficient with a small number of conversations (and has no improved bandwith with just one). While Link Aggregation is good, it’s not as efficient as a single faster link.”

the ESX 3.x software initiator really only works on a single TCP connection for each target – so all traffic to a single iSCSI Target will use a single logical interface. Without extra design measures, it does limit the amount of IO available to each iSCSI target to roughly 120 – 160 MBs of read and write access.

“This design does not limit the total amount of I/O bandwidth available to an ESX host configured with multiple GbE links for iSCSI traffic (or more generally VMKernel traffic) connecting to multiple datastores across multiple iSCSI targets, but does for a single iSCSI target without taking extra steps.

Question 1: How do I configure MPIO (in this case, VMware NMP) and my iSCSI targets and LUNs to get the most optimal use of my network infrastructure? How do I scale that up?

Answer 1: Keep it simple. Use the ESX iSCSI software initiator. Use multiple iSCSI targets. Use MPIO at the ESX layer. Add Ethernet links and iSCSI targets to increase overall throughput. Ser your expectation for no more than ~160MBps for a single iSCSI target.

Remember an iSCSI session is from initiator to target. If use multiple iSCSI targets, with multiple IP addresses, you will use all the available links in aggregate, the storage traffic in total will load balance relatively well. But any individual one target will be limited to a maximum of single GbE connection’s worth of bandwidth.

Remember that this also applies to all the LUNs behind that target. So, consider that as you distribute the LUNs appropriately among those targets.

The ESX initiator uses the same core method to get a list of targets from any iSCSI array (static configuration or dynamic discovery using the iSCSI SendTargets request) and then a list of LUNs behind that target (SCSI REPORT LUNS command).”

Question 4: Do I use Link Aggregation and if so, how?

Answer 4: There are some reasons to use Link Aggregation, but increasing a throughput to a single iSCSI target isn’t one of them in ESX 3.x.

What about Link Aggregation – shouldn’t that resolve the issue of not being able to drive more than a single GbE for each iSCSI target? In a word – NO. A TCP connection will have the same IP addresses and MAC addresses for the duration of the connection, and therefore the same hash result. This means that regardless of your link aggregation setup, in ESX 3.x, the network traffic from an ESX host for a single iSCSI target will always follow a single link.

For swiSCSI users, they also mention some cool details about what’s coming in the next release of ESX/ESXi. Those looking for more iSCSI performance will want to pay attention. 10Gb Ethernet is also going to be a game changer, further threatening fibre channel SAN technologies.

I can’t stress enough how neat and informative this article is. To boot, technology experts from competing storage vendors pooled their knowledge for the greater good. That’s just awesome!

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Great iSCSI info!

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The VMware Fusion team has put together a great “how to” guide for installing Microsoft Windows 7 (beta) on VMware Fusion on Mac.  Complete with screenshots and detailed explanations, this resource should have you up and running Windows 7 in no time.

I’m hearing from various people in the trenches that Windows 7 on a VM runs very well, better than Vista, and one report says with as little as 512MB RAM.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell if people are more excited about running the new Windows OS as a VM, or the fact that the Windows promise land that Vista never provided may be right around the corner.

Check it out!

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Post from: boche.net – VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Learn how to utilize VMware so you can save your company money this year from Train Signal! Click Here!

How to install Windows 7 on VMware Fusion

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