Eric Sloof

Symantec VirtualStore is a highly scalable, clustered NAS solution for VMware virtual machine management. Based on the Veritas Storage Foundation Cluster File System from Symantec, VirtualStore solves the storage challenges of virtual infrastructures with features that provide rapid provisioning of servers and virtual desktops, and efficient cloning and boot up of virtual machines, all through VMware vCenter, their management console.

• Advanced Storage Virtualization. VirtualStore is a highly scalable, clustered NAS solution that reduces storage costs associated with virtual machine sprawl and improves the performance of virtual infrastructures with built-in acceleration for serving up VMware virtual machines.

• Space-efficient Virtual Machine Provisioning. Built-in cloning and provisioning functionality captures spaceoptimized snapshots of virtual machines for significant storage savings.

• Single Management Console. Integration with VMware vCenter provides end-to-end virtual machine management from a central location.

• Enhanced End-user Virtual Desktop Experience. Patented solution for caching virtual images addresses the challenge of multiple users booting up their virtual machines simultaneously.

http://www.symantec.com/business/virtualstore

While I was prepping my upcoming “vSphere Advanced Troubleshooting” presentation for the Dutch VMUG event 2010, I stumbled upon a great presentation by Mark Monce. It’s called “Transitioning to ESXi with vSphere 4.1” and contains a lot of information like:

• Overview of ESXi
  
• Hardware Monitoring and Systems Management
  
• Infrastructure Services
  
• Command Line Interfaces
  
• Diagnostics and Troubleshooting

One thing I didn’t know was, that you can use your web browser to retrieve some essential ESXi diagnostic information.

Browser-based Access of Config Files
https://<hostname>/host
Browser-based Access of Log Files
https://<hostname>/host/messages
Browser-based Access of DatastoreFiles
https://<hostname>/folder

Dave Mishchenko has released a new book about VMware for ESXi: Planning, Implementation, and Security which is available for order at Amazon. VMware ESXi is the easiest way to get started with virtualization -- and it's free. It allows administrators to consolidate their applications onto fewer servers and start saving money through reduced hardware, power, cooling, and administration costs. VMware ESXi has been optimized and tested to run even their most resource-intensive applications and databases with minimal performance overhead. "VMware ESXi: Planning, Implementation, and Security" covers the key features critical to successfully planning for and implementing VMware's ESXi. The book is perfect for current VMware VI3 and vSphere administrators who may be planning their migration to vSphere ESXi. These users may have some experience with ESXi but not yet have it deployed within their production environment. This book provides the guidance to implement ESXi in their environment, ensuring a smooth transition from their current deployment of ESX.

 

This PowerPack extends PowerGUI with a set of folders, nodes, links and actions that allow you to manage HP Virtual Connect Modules used in the c class blade chassis. The powerpack utilises the ssh command line tool plink to administer the virtual connect remotely and securely. The thick client experience gives an administrator more power to customise day-to-day tasks when compared with the standard web interface. Using the methods demonstrated in this pack, an administrator can customise actions to suit their environment and ease the burden around supporting Vitrual Connect Domains.

http://www.powergui.org/entry.jspa?externalID=3047&categoryID=389

Receive packets might be dropped at the virtual switch if the virtual machine’s network driver runs out of receive (Rx) buffers, that is, a buffer overflow. The dropped packets may be reduced by increasing the Rx buffers for the virtual network driver.

In ESX 4.1, you can configure the following parameters from the Device Manager (a Control Panel dialog box) in Windows guest operating systems: Rx Ring #1 Size, Rx Ring #2 Size, Tx Ring Size, Small Rx Buffers, and Large Rx Buffers.


The default value of the size of the first Rx ring, Rx Ring #1 Size, is 512. You can modify the number of Rx buffers separately using the Small Rx Buffers parameter. The default value is 1024.
For some processes (for example, traffic that arrives in burst), you might need to increase the size of the ring, while for others (for example, applications that are slow in processing receive traffic) you might increase the number of the receive buffers.

When jumbo frames are enabled, you might use a second ring, Rx Ring #2 Size. The default value of RX Ring #2 Size is 32. The number of large buffers that are used in both RX Ring #1 and #2 Sizes when jumbo frames are enabled is controlled by Large Rx Buffers. The default value of Large Rx Buffers is 768.

Source KB Article: 1010071

Members of this group have gained the in-depth skills and industry-recognized certification on VMware technology. The VMware Certified Professional Program is designed for everyone who wants to demonstrate their expertise in virtual infrastructure and increase his potential for career advancement. If you are a VCP you can join this group.

If you don’t know what a LinkedIn group is, here is a short explanation : Many professionals advance their careers and business goals by counting on industry and professional groups, alumni organizations, industry conferences and corporate alumni groups to help them make vital new business contacts. The VMware LinkedIn Groups offers extra features stay in touch with one another and discover powerful new business contacts within their groups and beyond.

Veeam has released The First Annual Report on VMware Data Protection. They hired an independent research firm, to survey 500 enterprises CIOs. Vanson Bourne, an independent market research organization, conducted an online survey in August 2010 of 500 CIOs from organizations across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France that employ more than 1,000 people.

FirstAnnualReportonVMwareDataProtection-SurveyResults.pdf

In this video I’ll show you how to enable the Vmkernel System Info Shell (vsish) on an ESX host. The vsish is normally only available on an ESXi host but in this video you will see and learn that it’s also working on ESX. With vsish you can examine the VSI (VMkernel System Information) which can be useful when troubleshooting or adjusting advanced setting that are not exposed in the vSphere Client. My virtualization friend William Lam over at virtuallyGhetto has retreived a list with all the 250 hidden advanced settings. He created a great article about “What is VMware vsish?”. I don’t have to remind you that vsish is able to damage your system so use it with caution. You can also watch the HD version of this video on <YouTube> and <ScreenCast>.

Here's some additional information I've received from Krishna Raj Raja regarding vsish:

VSISH - VSI (Vmkernel Sys Info) Shell - is the interface to access/modify live vmkernel data structures/variables.

Nearly all the configurations under the /config node in vsish are modifiable through vCenter - Software settings -> Advanced settings.

Since vsish binary access vmkernel memory data structures it is build version dependent, one cannot use a vsish binary from one ESX build onto another ESX host with a different build.

vsi_traverse binary - dumps the VSI information into binary format - vm-support script command uses this to capture the system state. When collecting performance snapshot, vm-support script captures vsi snapshot every few secs. esxtop when run in replay mode will fetch data from the VSI snapshots instead of the data from the live system. vsish -c option allow vsish to fetch information from the vsi snapshot (generated by vsi_traverse) instead of using the live system.

In this article I want to set the record straight regarding last week’s article about New in esxtop RESV/s (SCSI reservations per second). During VMware Communities Roundtable Podcast number 118 with Krishna Raj Raja. I have learned that I didn’t measure the right metric with the correct method so now I’ve used the right method and metric -> CONS/s. I hope you will enjoy it. You can also watch the HD version of this video on <YouTube> and <ScreenCast>.

I’ve received an email from Krishna Raj Raja with some additional details about SCSI RESV/s and CONS/s counters.

- A nonzero value for RESV/s counter indicates that the host is doing some metadata operation on the VMFS volume (like creating a file, allocating disk space, file rename, permission change, timestamp update etc) - this by itself does not cause any performance problem.

- SCSI reservation conflict counter - CONS/s will become non-zero  when a host tries to do any I/O on a LUN which has a SCSI reservation in progress.

- SCSI reservation is held for a very short period (few hundred microseconds) so the chances of a getting a conflict is very less on a small cluster. However as the number of hosts that shares the LUN increases conflicts could arise more frequently.

- SCSI reserve/release commands have higher priority and they are placed ahead in the host's SCSI I/O queue for immediate dispatch.

- When SCSI reservation is held on a LUN, I/O issued by a VM going to that LUN will fail with the BUSY status within the guest, and the guest will have to retry the I/O. This could result in an end to end increase in I/O latency for that particular I/O.

- The new vSphere 4.1 feature - VAAI - has support for ATS (Atomic test and set) functionality which is a replacement for SCSI reservation and it provides much faster/granular locking mechanism. Performance impact is very little if ATS is used instead of SCSI reserve/release mechanism.

This document describes the technical aspects of NetApp support and integration with VMware® vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI), as well as how to deploy and use this technology. VAAI is a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and SCSI commands that offload certain I/O-intensive tasks to NetApp® storage systems. By integrating with vStorage APIs, NetApp enables advanced storage capabilities to be accessed and executed from familiar VMware interfaces, improving manageability, performance, data mobility, and data protection.

http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3886.pdf