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Archive for May, 2012

Help, My VDI Project is Hell! – a London VMUG presentation

May 17th, 2012 2 comments

Today I have the pleasure of talking at the London VMware User Group.

My presentation is called Help, My VDI Project is Hell!

There are many complexities with VDI projects causing many to fail at the planning stage, at the POC or testing stage or even worse during the implementation phase.

I go through some of the Magic Fixes that VDI is meant to solve and what the reality often turns out to be with all this new technology you need to consider.

Looking at some research stats, many companies are doing VDI for the wrong reasons with many thinking they should do VDI to save costs and then realising this often isn’t the case.

VDI is great for many use cases, remote connectivity, security, quicker provisioning, containing your VM info, maybe availability, maybe easier management but can be also terrible in many circumstances with performance, user experience, cost, peripherals, licensing, flexibility, support and general complexity issues.

I then go through the 3 things you need to work out, your strategy, your apps and your users.

Read more…

Categories: VDI, VMUG, VMware Tags: , ,

NetApp PowerShell Toolkit, DataONTAP 2 released supporting ONTAP 8.1 Cluster Mode & more vdisk conversions

May 2nd, 2012 No comments

It seems like only yesterday (well, OK 3 months ago) that NetApp updated it’s Powershell Toolkit, DataONTAP to version 1.7.

Well, today, now we have Powershell Toolkit, DataONTAP version 2.0

The major features include:

  • Data ONTAP 8.1 (Cluster-Mode) support – Cluster Mode Powershell architecture is now said to be stable and complete, 86 new cmdlets
  • Dynamic VHD to fixed VHD conversion – Use rapid copy-offload with ConvertTo-NaVhd to convert a dynamic VHD to a thin, fixed VHD to fix alignment issues without using more space for both LUNs and CIFS shares
  • LUN to VHD file conversion – ConvertTo-NaVhd can convert an entire LUN to a VHD file in another LUN, great for P2Vs.
  • VHD file to LUN conversion – new cmdlet ConvertTo-NaLun to convert a VHD file to a LUN for a V2P if you need to
  • NDMP copy client – 4 new cmdlets to monitor NDMP copy operations.
  • More CIFS shares support – building in support for Windows Server 2012 supporting Hyper-V over SMB.

Read more…

New Emulex be2net drivers for ESX(i) 4.x and ESXi 5.x but they’re not supported yet for HP G7 Blades

May 2nd, 2012 32 comments

Update: 06 June 2012 – These drivers are now supported by HP – HP G7 Blade new Emulex be2net ESX(i) drivers 4.1.334.0 now supported

Update: 11 May 2012 to amend link and try work out HP support. Apologies I had the wrong ESX(i) version link in the original post and hadn’t properly investigated HP support for  Virtual Connect/FlexFabric which is confusing. Sorry, Sloppy me! 🙁

VMware has released a new Emulex be2net driver version 4.1.334.0 for both ESX(i) 4.x and ESXi 5.x for the Emulex OneConnect 10Gb Ethernet Controller which is used in HP G7 Blades. But, before you get too excited, HP has NOT certified these drivers for use with HP Virtual Connect and FlexFabric…I think.

You see in this page from VMware which was updated on 4 April 2012 the advice is to use the 4.0.306.0 driver for ESX(i) 4.x and 4.0.355.1 for ESXi 5.x
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2007397

This page however from VMware says for ESXi 5 driver version 4.0.355.1 isn’t supported for HP ProLiant G7 servers. It requires a new firmware version that is not currently available.
http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/detail.php?deviceCategory=io&productid=19067&vcl=true

but I think this is old as the HP advisory has been updated to say the 4.0.355.1 driver is supported
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03005737

But in this document which looks like it has been written by HP, the 4.1.334 drivers for both versions ARE supported (but again with different firmware version numbers that don’t really tally up with what has been supported before)
http://partnerweb.vmware.com/programs/hcl/ESX_Flex_config.pdf

I’m thinking that this document may be a little premature as no other HP information has been updated to reflect support for the 4.1.334 drivers

So, just for your information, the 4.1.334 drivers can be downloaded from the following links when they may be supported:

ESX(i) 4.x:
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESX4041-EMULEX-be2net-413340&productId=230

ESXi 5.x:
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details/dt_esxi50_emulex_be2net_413340/dHRAYndld3diZHBqaA==

But, I’m thinking the currently supported drivers are:

ESX(i) 4.x: version 4.0.306.0
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esxi40_emulex_be2net_403060/ZHcqYnQqaGpiZEBlZA

ESXi 5.x: version 4.0.355.1
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details/dt_esxi50_emulex_be2net_413340/dHRAYndld3diZHBqaA==

I’ve updated my post: HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites

Categories: ESX, Flex-10, HP, VMware Tags: , , , , ,