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The London VMware User Group (VMUG) is meeting in an independence day extravaganza  on the 4th July 2013 at:

London Chamber of Commerce and Industry
33 Queen Street
London,
EC4R 1AP

It doesn’t cost anything to attend and is a full day event stuffed to the gills with interesting content and people. Lunch is included so you won’t even go hungry and its well worth arranging time away from your desk for access to so much more information than you can possibly find by trawling the web. You can register at http://www.vmug.com/e/in/eid=906

I’ll be hosting a VDI roundtable so if you have anything you’d like to share or something you need answered, come along and join in the discussion.

Community Speakers: 
• Fernando Frediani – Build Your Own Shared Storage
• Steve Bruck and Stuart McHugh - SSO SOS
• Sam McGeown – PowerCLI Tips and Scripts
• Seb Hakiel – 4000-seat VDI Lessons
• Julian Wood – VDI roundtable Discussion
• Simon Gallagher – Hybrid vCloud Reaction

Sponsor Speakers: 
• Hans de Leenheer – Veeam
• David Cumberworth – Atlantis Computing
• Dell Wyse

Special Guest: 
• Frank Denneman – Pernix Data

You can see the full agenda here.

After filling your head with superb technical content, it’s time to fill your tummy with a tasty beverage so we’ll all be heading on to the pub to catch up and solve the worlds EUC and cloud issues!

See you there.

HP has released an advisory saying that with versions of the Emulex Nic driver firmware pre 4.1.450.7 Device Control Channel (DCC) may not work which could cause your blades with NC55x Nics to drop off the network if the upstream network connection fails. This has been an issue which has plagued HP blade networking since the beginning and was a particular problem with the G6 Broadcom Nics so its disconcerting to see similar issues resurface.

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/kb/docDisplay/?javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.prp_ba847bafb2a2d782fcbb0710b053ce01=wsrp-navigationalState%3DdocId%253Demr_na-c03600027-2%257CdocLocale%253D%257CcalledBy%253D&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.tpst=ba847bafb2a2d782fcbb0710b053ce01&ac.admitted=1369727818792.876444892.199480143

4.1.450.7  is older firmware however and my post HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites recommends Emulex firmware version 4.2.401.605 so if you haven’t updated, now is the time.

HP blade servers have hard wired connections to their immediate upstream Virtual Connect switch via the chassis backplane. This means in normal operation the Nic on the blade will never see a down state  unless the physical Virtual Connect switch is powered off or removed. This would still be the case even if the upstream network connection failed if it wasn’t for DCC. DCC is a firmware component where Virtual Connect sees all uplinks for an Ethernet Network are down and then sends a command down to the individual Flex Nics to tell them to mark the port as down so the blade can fail over traffic to another nic in a port group or team. DCC  is what SmartLink does and requires coordination between Virtual Connect firmware and the blade Nic firmware which in the past has caused a lot of issues.

Something I noticed in the advisory however was you can actually now see whether DCC/SmartLink is working for each individual network connection. Navigate to the Interconnect Bays in the VCM GUI, then navigate to the server ports and view the DCC state:

{Source: HP}

This looks like a recent addition to Virtual Connect firmware and will certainly help troubleshooting network connection issues but hopefully the DCC disconnect debacle won’t be repeated.

HP has released a customer advisory saying the HP Insight Management WBEM Providers reports the incorrect “VersionString,” “MinorVersion,” and “RevisionNumber” properties in the SMX_SoftwareIdentity class output in HP SIM. Although this is a minor issue, it may trip you up if you use HP SIM for software version reporting so this is a heads up.

http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/kb/docDisplay/?spf_p.tpst=kbDocDisplay&spf_p.prp_kbDocDisplay=wsrp-navigationalState%3DdocId%253Demr_na-c03773942-1%257CdocLocale%253D%257CcalledBy%253D&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

This issue is corrected in HP WBEM Providers for VMware ESXi 5.0 and vSphere 5.1 Version 03.02.00.

A workaround is to use the following command to get the correct version of the WBEM provider.

esxcli software vib list | grep smx

VMware and HP have both released advisories which say you shouldn’t use HP Virtual Connect in tunnel mode if you are using vCloud Director Network Isolation (vCDNI) which is MAC-in-MAC encapsulation.

There are two network modes available with Virtual Connect, Tunnel Mode and Mapped Mode.

When using Tunnel Mode, Virtual Connect passes all tagged and untagged packets through the Virtual Connect switch down to select blades where the VLANs are split into port groups. The uplinks are therefore considered dedicated uplinks as control over which VLANs are trunked is done at the upstream switch and so you can’t have a different set of VLANs going to Blade 1 and Blade 2 while still utilising the same uplinks. You could obviously have separate sets of uplinks for Blade 1 and Blade 2 to achieve this. The advantage of tunneling mode is only having to specify your VLANs once at the upstream switch and being able to pass all VLANs down the same trunk to multiple blades and only having to manage VLANs at the upstream switch and port groups on the ESXi host or within the vSphere Distributed Switch.

In Mapped Mode  mode, the Virtual Connect switch examines all the VLANs and by defining Ethernet Networks for each VLAN on the Virtual Connect switch you can selectively pass down all or some of the VLANs down to the blades. The uplinks are considered shared as you can trunk all VLANs you will need for any blade and for example have some VLANs going to Blade 1 and other VLANs going to Blade 2 but sharing the same uplinks. In order to do this you  have to create separate Ethernet Networks for every VLAN (possibly two for redundancy) and manage VLANs at both the upstream and Virtual Connect switches as well as port groups on the ESXi host or within the vSphere Distributed Switch.

Read more…

I had always thought you couldn’t update Windows Server editions from one to another without a reinstall as allegedly the base software wasn’t the same even though we all knew it was really just a file or two or registry key or two that needed to be changed.

This in fact wasn’t possible until Windows Server 2008 / Windows Vista SP1 which introduced Windows Edition-Servicing Command-Line Options using a built-in utility called the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool which doesn’t require any media to upgrade the edition and just needs a reboot.

I’ve recently had to do this with Windows 2008 R2.

You can’t use this on DCs, can only do upgrades, not downgrades and the supported Windows 2008 R2 upgrade paths are:

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard -> Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise -> Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Server Core -> Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Server Core -> Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Server Core
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation -> Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

Read more…

HP has updated its ESXi 5.x customised images as part of its Service Pack for Proliant (SPP) Feb 2013 update.

HP’s customised images are fully integrated sets of specific drivers and software that are tested to work together. You can see the list of Driver Versions in HP supplied VMware ESX/ESXi images.

I have done an extensive update of my HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites post which includes these new customised images.

HP Custom Image for VMware ESXi 5.1 February 2013: VMware-ESXi-5.1.0-799733-HP-5.34.23.iso

The new and updated features for the HP vSphere 5.1 Customized Image for February 2013 include:

• Provider Features:
  • Report installed licenses for HP Dynamic Smart Array Controller.
  • Report New memory properties.
  • Support for IP Address encoding in SNMP traps.
  • Support SMX MemoryModuleOnBoard association.
  • HP Dynamic Smart Array Controller split cache support.
  • Report New RAID levels for storage volume fault tolerance.
  • HP Smart Cache support.
  • Update reporting of Smart Array Cache Status to align with firmware and iLO.
• AMS features:
  • Report running SW processes to HP Insight Remote Support.
  • Report vSphere 5.1 SNMP agent management IP and enable VMware vSphere 5.1 SNMP agent to report iLO4 management IP.
  • IML logging for NIC, and SAS traps.
  • Limit AMS log file size and support log redirection as defined by the ESXi host parameter: ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation
• SR-IOV Support:
  • Updated Intel 10Gb network driver to enable SR-IOV for the HP 560FLB, 560M, 560SFP+, and 560FLR-SFP+.

HP Custom Image for VMware ESXi 5.0.0 Update 2 February 2013: VMware-ESXi-5.0.0-Update2-914586-HP-5.27.20.iso

The new and updated features for the HP vSphere 5.0 U2 Customized Image for February 2013 include:

• Provider Features:
  • Report installed licenses for HP Dynamic Smart Array Controller.
  • Report New memory properties.
  • Support for IP Address encoding in SNMP traps.
  • Support SMX MemoryModuleOnBoard association.
  • HP Dynamic Smart Array Controller split cache support.
  • Report New RAID levels for storage volume fault tolerance.
  • HP Smart Cache support.
  • Update reporting of Smart Array Cache Status to align with firmware and iLO.
• AMS features:
  • Report running SW processes to HP Insight Remote Support.
  • IML logging for NIC, and SAS traps.
  • Limit AMS log file size and support log redirection as defined by the ESXi host parameter: ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation

Emulex has released a new set of drivers and firmware for use on Gen8 and G7 HP Servers including blades with both VMware ESXi 5.0 and 5.1.

Driver:
Emulex be2net nic driver version 4.2.327.0 which is included in the HP Custom Image for VMware ESXi 5.1 February 2013: VMware-ESXi-5.1.0-799733-HP-5.34.23.iso and HP Custom Image for VMware ESXi 5.0.0 Update 2 February 2013: VMware-ESXi-5.0.0-Update2-914586-HP-5.27.20.iso or can be downloaded separately from VMware.

Emulex has also released a newer driver version 4.4.231.0 which is available from VMware but this isn’t supported as yet by HP.

Firmware:
Emulex firmware version 4.2.401.605 which can be updated using the Emulex OneConnect-Flash .ISO.

There was a 4.2.401.6 released but this has been superseded by 4.2.401.605 which fixes a number of issues.

I have done an extensive update of my HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites post which includes these new Emulex drivers and firmware.

VMware has today released the VMware Horizon Suite which they are calling “The platform for workforce mobility.”

The Horizon Suite was initially announced at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco and is VMware’s integrated product suite for End User Computing which comprises three main components:

• VMware Horizon Workspace
• VMware Horizon View
• VMware Horizon Mirage

This is a big step for VMware by providing a far more integrated End User Computing suite for customers rather than perpetuating the old tiring battle of VDI brokers between VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop. VDI is important but only a part of the overall “delivering applications to users” so VMware is providing  a lot more in this suite by bringing together traditional VDI with applications and data. This is the initial release with some things that don’t integrate yet or as well as they should so hopefully the Suite will become more tightly knit down the road. It will be interesting to see how customers respond.

VMware Horizon Workspace
VMware envisions VMware Horizon Workspace as a “Multi-device workspace for IT services” and sees three trends that are changing IT. New device platforms with less reliance on Windows, new apps with more SaaS and mobile apps and new user expectations including better collaboration and productivity.

Read more…

VMware has released PowerCLI 5.1 Release 2 which is  the latest update to its PowerShell interface which includes support for Virtual Distributed Switches, vCloud Director 5.1 and PowerShell 3.

Virtual Distributed Switches

This new release now includes 14 new cmdlets to manage VMware Virtual Distributed Switches, something people have been waiting eagerly for:

• Get-VDSwitch
• New-VDSwitch
• Remove-VDSwitch
• Set-VDSwitch
• Export-VDSwitch
• Get-VDPortGroup
• New-VDPortGroup
• Remove-VDPortGroup
• Set-VDPortGroup
• Export-VDPortGroup
• Add-VDSwitchPhysicalNetworkAdapter
• Remove-VDSwitchPhysicalNetworkAdapter
• Add-VDSwitchVMHost
• Remove-VDSwitchVMHost

There are also enhancements to existing cmdlets such as Set-VMHostNetworkAdapter and Set-NetworkAdapter to support distributed port groups.

vCloud Director 5.1

vCloud Director 5.1 support has also been added with a new snap-in which include cmdlets to:

• Connect to a vCloud Director Server
• Create, Manage, Modify and Retrieve Organizations
• Create, Manage, Modify and Retrieve Organization Virtual Datacenters
• Create, Manage, Modify and Retrieve Organization Networks
• Importing vApps & Creating vApp Templates
• Create, Manage, Modify and Retrieve a vApp
• Create, Manage, Modify and Retrieve vApp Networks
• Create and Manage Access Control Rules

PowerShell 3

PowerCLI 5.1 Release 2 also now includes support for PowerShell 3 which is Microsoft’s latest update to its phenomenal scripting environment. Version 3 enhancement include Workflows & Scheduled Jobs, simpler where-object formatting, a new web-based console, persistent sessions, enhanced IDE,  Module Auto-Loading and plenty of new and enhanced cmdlets.

Missing

Something I have spotted that is still missing is support for the new vSphere Web Client tags which would be useful.

Documentation

It’s worth look at the release notes for some of the Known Issues and also understanding which PowerCLI cmdlets only work with the 32-bit version.

Also of use is the User Guide .PDF which has some example scripts.

Great update, VMware, keep ‘em coming!

The London VMware User Group (VMUG) gathers again following the great success of the UK National VMUG last November. The meeting is on the 24th January 2013 at:

London Chamber of Commerce and Industry
33 Queen Street
London,
EC4R 1AP

It’s a free to attend full day event packed with interesting useful content with even lunch included and certainly worth a day out of the office. You can register at http://www.vmug.com/e/in/eid=695.

Brian Gammage who is VMware’s chief market technologist will be speaking about VMware’s vision for End User Computing (EUC) in Journey to the Post-PC Era and will also be chairing what promises to be a very interesting panel discussion EUC Panel with VDI Gurus which I’ve been asked to participate in.

From VMware, we have Spencer Pitts doing a What’s Here and What’s Coming Soon all about VMware’s EUC products and Kim Raynard will be talking about ex-Dynamic Ops, now vCloud Automation Center (vCAC).

Dan Senior who is Colt’s lead architect for their vCloud platform will be speaking about Deploying vCloud Director 5.1 and VXLAN.

VMUG regular presenter Stu Radnidge will be talking about Big Data for the Uninitiated.

Gregg Robertson will be letting you know about VMware Certification Updates.

Eric Sloof will also be jetting over from the Netherlands to give us an HA deep dive.

There are also sponsor presentations from Nutanix, Zerto and 10Zig.

You can see the full agenda here.

After filling your head with superb technical content, it’s time to fill your tummy with a tasty beverage so we’ll all be heading on to the pub to catch up and solve the worlds EUC and cloud  issues!

See you there.