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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…

Updated: 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

HP has released two new firmware updates for its blade chassis, 3.50 and 3.55.

These were both released on the same day.

3.50 was released to support Gen 8 blades and is required before you insert any Gen 8 blades into your enclosure (along with having Virtual Connect 3.51). There are also a lot of other fixes. You will also need to update HP SIM to at least 6.3 to be able to discover OAs from 3.30 up.

3.55 was released on the same day as it seems testing missed some issues with authentication and EBIPA (great!) so I’m not sure why 3.50 was released at all. Confusingly the release notes and fixes for 3.55 include all the information from 3.50 so its not immediately obvious what the difference is.

So, no point really even looking at 3.50 but rather going straight for 3.55 which can be downloaded from:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3188465&swItem=MTX-1ee4cda0b03447c6974e4ca184&prodNameId=3188475&swEnvOID=4040&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=3

Enhancements/New Features
Read more…

HP has released a new version of the firmware for G7 blades which use an Emulex be2net Nic rather than the Broadcom bnx2x Nic used in G6 blades.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=5033632&swItem=co-103088-1&prodNameId=5033634&swEnvOID=54&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=3

This is an offline update so will require you to boot from an .ISO to apply the firmware update.

New Features

1. Added support for the following operating systems: – RHEL 6.2

Resolved Issues from Firmware Version 4.0.360.15

1. A file level restore (FLR) request sent to a BE3 device while rebooting an HP UX guest VM image caused a timeout event.
2. When users tried to disable beaconing, they would receive a “Success” status even if beaconing had already been disabled.
3. The CN1100e device using VLAN did not pass traffic using “copy”. This failed only in full power mode. Traffic only passed in auxiliary mode.
4. The NC551 adapter failed to link with the 10Gb Pass-Thru module when using a 1Gb SFP transceiver.
5. The CN1000e device occasionally lost connection to network-attached storage (NAS) volumes when running an FCoE protocol under heavy load.
6. The FCoE port did not register as connected after repeated virtual connect (VC) module failovers.
7. The Flex NIC required changes to the DCC method to keep the link down until the switch explicitly sent link up.
8. A BL460c G7 array with P410i version 5.1x firmware would not boot from iSCSI if a logical drive was connected to it.

Known Issues

There are no known issues for this release.

Have a look at my updated post: HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & VMware ESX(i) pre-requisites for information on all firmware & driver compatibility.

HP has updated its ESXi 5.0 image to include ESXi 5.0 Update 1.

The HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.0 includes the latest HP Common Information Model (CIM) Providers, HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) driver, HP Compaq ROM Utility (CRU) driver, and the new HP Agentless Management Service (AMS).

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

Direct Download:
http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?sp4ts.oid=4194638&spf_p.tpst=psiSwdMain&spf_p.prp_psiSwdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Dlang%253Den%257Ccc%253DUS%257CprodSeriesId%253D4194735%257CprodNameId%253D4194638%257CswEnvOID%253D4115%257CswLang%253D8%257CswItem%253DMTX-c14ba20dc6274cc38e3203c3cb%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

The latest versions are:

• hp-smx-provider 500.02.10.61.43-434156
• char-hpilo 500.9.0.0.9-1OEM.500.0.0.434156
• char-hpcru 5.0.0.8-1OEM.500.0.0.434156
• hp-ams-esx-500.9.0.0-55.434156

Enhancements:

• Added support for:
  • HP ProLiant  BL460c Gen8 server
  • HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 server
  • HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server
  • HP ProLiant ML350p Gen8 server
  • HP ProLiant DL160 Gen8 server
• Added the new HP Agentless Management Service
• Added the following support to the HP CIM Providers:
  • HP iLO4 (Integrated Lights-Out)
  • HP SmartSSD Wear Gauge
  • HP SmartDrive
  • Support for additional Power Supply

Expert virtualisation opinionator extroadinaire, Mike Laverick, very kindly invited me to have a chinwag this week. I’ve known Mike for a few years through the VMware community and we’ve chatted at length often so was great to be able to do it again as a chinwag.

We had a great chat talking about certificates, VDI strategy, private cloud CraaP! & SRM with PowerCLI.

You can see/hear/subscribe to/download the chinwag from here:
http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/2012/03/23/chinwag-with-julian-wood-episode-71/

Thanks Mike!

NetApp has released the latest version of its vCenter plug-in which ties together VM and storage management all within the vSphere Client. The update includes far more capability for Cluster Mode and interestingly online alignment of VMs.

So, What’s New?

The Monitoring and Host Configuration capability adds support for the following:

• Data ONTAP® for Cluster-Mode
• Management of consolidated storage controller credentials. These credentials apply to the Monitoring and Host Configuration capability, the Provisioning and Cloning capability, and the Optimization and Migration capability.
• Scanning for and flagging indirect paths used to access data for Cluser-Mode based NFS exports, and providing a list of potential direct data paths
• The NFS VAAI Plugin. This is a software library that integrates with Virtual Disk Libraries and allows VMware software to execute certain primitives on NetApp storage controllers.

The Provisioning and Cloning capability enables you to perform the following tasks:

• Provision and manage NFS and VMFS datastores on storage systems running Data ONTAP for Cluster-Mode
• Use the Monitoring and Host Configuration capability to add and remove storage systems

A new capability, Optimization and Migration, enables you to perform the following tasks:

• Review the alignment status of virtual machines
• Perform online alignment of virtual machines by migrating them into optimized VMFS datastores
• Migrate a group of virtual machines into new or existing datastores

The Backup and Recovery capability enables you to perform the following task:

• Back up and restore a virtual machine even if a VMware consistency snapshot fail

The Virtual Storage Console 4.0 can be downloaded from here (NOW login required)

This is part 6 of a 7 part post on managing vSphere 5 Certificates:

1. Installing a Root Certificate Authority
2. Distributing the root CA certificate to clients
3. Creating the default vCenter 5 Server Certificate and including a DNS alias
4. Replacing the default vCenter 5 Server Certificate
5. Replacing the default vCenter 5 Web Client Server Certificate
6. Replacing the default vCenter 5 Inventory Service Certificate
7. Replacing the default vSphere Update Manager 5 Server Certificate

vCenter Server actually has three different components which need their certificates updated, vCenter Server, vCenter Web Client Server and vCenter 5 Inventory Service. Initially I had only written the vCenter Server certificate steps but luckily Michael Webster (VCDX #66) keeps me on my toes and I’ve now added parts for the other two components.

You should have now created the default vCenter 5 server certificate files, replaced the default vCenter 5 Server certificate, replaced the vCenter 5 Web Client Server certificate and can now go ahead and replace the vCenter 5 Inventory Service Certificate with the same new certificate files you have created.

On the vCenter Server navigate to C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Inventory Service\ssl.

Make a backup copy of the SSL folder.

Copy the rui.crt, rui.key and rui.pfx files from C:\OpenSSL-Win64\bin into the into the vCenter Inventory Service SSL folder

Read more…

This is part 5 of a 7 part post on managing vSphere 5 Certificates:

1. Installing a Root Certificate Authority
2. Distributing the root CA certificate to clients
3. Creating the default vCenter 5 Server Certificate and including a DNS alias
4. Replacing the default vCenter 5 Server Certificate
5. Replacing the default vCenter 5 Web Client Server Certificate
6. Replacing the default vCenter 5 Inventory Service Certificate
7. Replacing the default vSphere Update Manager 5 Server Certificate

vCenter Server actually has three different components which need their certificates updated, vCenter Server, vCenter Web Client Server and vCenter 5 Inventory Service. Initially I had only written the vCenter Server certificate steps but luckily Michael Webster (VCDX #66) keeps me on my toes and I’ve now added parts for the other two components.

You should have now created the default vCenter 5 server certificate files, replaced the default vCenter 5 Server certificate and can now go ahead and replace the vCenter 5 Web Client Server Certificate with the same new certificate files you have created.

On the vCenter Server navigate to C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere Web Client\DMServer\config\.

Make a backup copy of the SSL folder.

Copy the rui.crt, rui.key and rui.pfx files from C:\OpenSSL-Win64\bin into the into the vCenter Web Client Server SSL folder

Read more…

This is part 4 of a 7 part post on managing vSphere 5 Certificates:

1. Installing a Root Certificate Authority
2. Distributing the root CA certificate to clients
3. Creating the default vCenter 5 Server Certificate and including a DNS alias
4. Replacing the default vCenter 5 Server Certificate
5. Replacing the default vCenter 5 Web Client Server Certificate
6. Replacing the default vCenter 5 Inventory Service Certificate
7. Replacing the default vSphere Update Manager 5 Server Certificate

vCenter Server actually has three different components which need their certificates updated, vCenter Server, vCenter Web Client Server and vCenter 5 Inventory Service. Initially I had only written the vCenter Server certificate steps but luckily Michael Webster (VCDX #66) keeps me on my toes and I’ve now added parts for the other two components.

You should have now created the default vCenter 5 server certificate files and can now go ahead and replace the existing certificate for vCenter 5 Server with the new certificate files you have created.

On the vCenter Server navigate to C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter.

Make a backup copy of the SSL folder.

Copy the rui.crt, rui.key and rui.pfx files from C:\OpenSSL-Win64\bin into the into the vCenter SSL folder

Read more…