Eric Sloof

This great song was the winner of the VMware Virtually Famous video competition.  Lodge McCammon, Brian Bouterse and Sammie Carter (employees of the Friday Institute) posted a YouTube video you can see their video clip on a large video screen for 10.000+ attendees at the VMworld. After the session they were presented with a check for $15,000 which was donated to the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation.

Thomas Bishop figured out how to automatically let your ESX 3i server start in the interactive shell mode. Well that’s great but what to do when we are logged in. Do we have the same environment as the service console or are there less or new features? I captured a list of commands you could use in the ESX 3i interactive shell. Have fun with it and use at your own risk.

Continue reading "ESX 3i Shell Commands" »

When you are going to create you own software and want to connect to the VCserver the MOB is your friend.  With the Managed Object Browser (https://server/mob) you have the opportunity to browse trough every object you can address from within the SDK.  Since I’m involved in building software (Virtual Machine MKS Client), I was  wondering if there are any new objects in the ESX 3i MOB, and there are. I found a lot of new references, but there where two of them who triggered my attention; the FileManager and the  VirtualDiskManager. Those two I haven’t noticed before and they seem to deal with files and disks.

Continue reading "ESX 3i Browsing the MOB" »

When I was stumbling through the VMTN Discussion Forums I found a thread about  VMware ESX 3i Server. One little post from Olivier Crémel   over at VMware caught my attention. It’s dealing with the boot options you can use during the initial startup of ESX 3i. When you press <SHIFT> o during the bootstrap you can put in additional commands. The only command Olivier Crémel   revealed was the nousbBoot option but there must be more. Finally I opened the ESX 3i kernel in a hex editor and found  the complete list. Some of these commands have great potential.

maxPCPUS serialPort overrideSerialPortAddr baudRate
fakeNUMAnodes cpuCellSize netNumPortsets netNumGPBuffers
netMaxPCPUPktCacheSize  netPktNumSlabSizes netPktHeapMinSize
netPktHeapMaxSize storageHeapMinSize storageHeapMaxSize
passthruMem BOOTIF BOOTUUID  clockMultiplierMayVaryPerNode
memmapMaxPhysicalMemMB acpiDbgLevel nouseNUMAInfo
nompsIntRouting noforceCRS noACPI noexecutePOST 
nopageSharing nomemCheckEveryWord nohyperthreading
nologicalApicId nodumpDiag  norealNMI nologOnScreen
nonetESX2LegacyMode  nonetPktBufUseSlab nonetPanicBadDevOpen
nonetUseProc nonetUseMemcpyNt noioapic nopassthruEnabled
novga64 nosmallFontForTTY noauditMode noshell nopasswdReset
nousbBoot nouwSwap nobusSpeedMayVary noclockMultiplierMayVary
noassumeCommonBusClock noassumePerNodeBusClock 
nobusSpeedMayVaryPerNode  notimerEnableTSC notimerForceTSC
notimerEnableHPET notimerEnableACPI notimerEnableMPMC
nomemmapStressHighBitMPNs nopanicOnVmkernelAbort noconsole
noxapicAMDDetect noxapicForce nocheckCPUIDLimit novmkKeyboard
novmkTerminals nouseTSCForCPUHz nodebugBreak nologSynchronous
nofastHzEstimate buddyPhysicalMemoryDebugStruct
noclockMultiplierMayVaryPerNode
nobuddyPhysicalMemoryDebugStruct BootConfig_LogOptions
BootUser

The ESX host is running so it’s time for the next step. The wizard shows the following message: “Your VMware ESX Server does not have any persistent storage. In order to run virtual machines, you must create at least one data store where virtual machines and other system files will be maintained�?. Let’s do it. I created a PDF document (datastore.pdf) with some screen shots. Then the trouble started. The final screenshot shows an error message and I thought lets use a real server instead of a desktop. I placed the USB key in a HP Proliant DL380 G5 and it wouldn’t boot from USB. When I got back to my desktop I discovered that the USB key is totally empty and doesn’t boot anymore :-( . Maybe someone at VMware can put a ghost image online? I received a lot of requests to share my copy and pbraren found out how to duplicate the USB key.

Plugins extend the capabilities of VirtualCenter by adding features and functionality not present in the base product. Generally, plugins have a server component and a client component. After the server component of a plugin is registered with a VirtualCenter server, the client component is available to all VirtualCenter clients connected to that VirtualCenter server. Users can download the client component of the plugin through the VirtualCenter client plugin manager. Users can select to enable or disable plugins installed in their VirtualCenter client. Disabling a plugin does not uninstall it from the client; it merely disables the functionality of the plugin. The VirtualCenter client interface might change after a plugin is enabled. New views, tabs, menus, and menu options related to the plugin's features are added to the interface. Existing interface items are not affected. The base product and plugins can be upgraded independent of each other. To reach the plugin manager, select Plugins > Manage Plugins.

Viktor commented on the “Loading VMware Hypervisor�? article and asked me to show more new features. Well Viktor you wish is my command ;-) To configuring a NTP server on a “normal�? ESX server you had to logon to the Service Console and manually edit some files before you could start the NTP daemon. Well in the ESX 3i version you can all do it from within the VI Client. Cool huh. In the picture you see the dialog box where this new option can be configured. Besides this new feature you should take a look at some other extras in on the configuration tab.

I got back from San Francisco and was unpacking my suitcase. I noticed the USB key I received when I picked up my T-Shirt and thought lets give it a try. This USB key contains a beta version of VMware ESX 3i – the next generation, thin hypervisor integrated into server hardware, providing the foundation for a virtual infrastructure. With this thin architecture, ESX Server 3i brings unprecedented levels of security, reliability and manageability to the IT infrastructure. I placed the memory stick in a Compaq EVO D50 desktop PC. After one or two minutes the kernel was loading and suddenly my VMware ESX Server 3i server was running.  I downloaded the new VI client version 2.1.0 build 54592 and installed it on my workstation. The next steps are configuring the storage and create a virtual machine. Stay tuned.

Bouke Groenescheij delivered his “Clustering How-To“ presentation at the VMworld 2007 event. I have never seen 250 people so enthusiastic about clustering. Bouke is a VMware certified instructor and owner of Jume, a company that delivers consultancy and training services. His presentation was dealing with Microsoft clustering in a VMware HA environment and is rated as one of the best. The Complete Clustering How-To with VMware and Microsoft Cluster Server presentation will be available on the VMware site. I made a brief video compilation and placed it on my YouTube page. The professional photographer Viktor van den Berg shoot some really nice pictures today.

Prior to the keynote, VMware showed a great video clip. It’s a song called “If the server goes down�? it ‘s also the winner of the VMworld 2007 video contest.  John Chambers the CEO of Cisco systems delivered the first keynote and talked about the fundamental shift in the IT industry. He emphasized the importance of a good CEO that must have a clear vision and a good reaction on market transitions. John expects a second innovation that will be driven on new inventions. At the end of his speech there was a great applause.