Eric Sloof

A few weeks ago I started building my first Visual Basic 2005 application. What I wanted to do is talk to the VMware Virtual Center API. I published a PDF document that describes how to connect to this API and I released some code fragments. In this process Robert Baumstark helped me a lot with great tips and suggestions. He even shared the source code  of his viclient.dll which can be used to get properties from VM’s  and logon to the Virtual Center server. After a lot of late hours of coding I finally can release the vmCDConnected application. What’s so special about this application ? Well it scans all the Virtual Machines and shows if they have a CD connected to it. After scanning the VM’s you can disconnect all the CD’s with a click of  a button. Why do we need it ? Imagine you have a DRS cluster with 80 VM’s, when one of those VM’s is connected to a CD it will stay on the same ESX server because V-Motion doesn’t work in combination with a connected CD. During beta release of this application some people reported a failure message after login in. I tested this application during several VI-3 Install and Configure classes I delivered but never have seen that error myself. When you encounter problems please report them. I'm also open to suggestions that might be implemented in the next version.

Download : http://www.ntpro.nl/software/VMCDConnected.zip

Last week I delivered my first fast-track VI3-IC course in Veenendaal. On forehand I was a bit skeptical about the fast-track teaching method because there is a grey area with lots of bad test exams. Those test exams are causing a devaluation of the VCP status. But I managed to stay out of the grey area and one of my students did me a great favor and described his thoughts and feelings about the past week. He also passed his exam with great figures. Curios ? here’s the story (in Dutch).

Continue reading "Fast-track VI3-IC" »

Eric Siebert started a great website with lots if VMware tips and tricks. His website runs under the name VMware-land. Eric is a 25 year IT veteran who has been dealing with computers his whole life. He has done everything from working on mid-range computers (S/36, AS/400), programming (RPG, dBase, Javascript, Lotuscript, VB Script), telco, cabling, networking, OS/2 administation, Novell Netware administation, Windows server administration, Lotus Domino administation, Websphere (App server, Portal server, MQ) administration, Siteminder administration, IIS administration, SQL administration and VMware administration. He has been using the VMware technology for over 2 years and has completely immersed himself in learning the product inside and out. He recently managed a very successful Windows server consolidation project migrating over 50 physical servers to 4 virtual servers. Eric resides in Arvada, Colorado with his wife and 3 children. Some topics you can find at http://vmware-land.com are dealing with:

How can I specify an alternate location for VM snapshot files?
How do I create an account so I do not have to use root?
How can I set a static MAC address for my VM?
How can I modify the ESX/VC UI web page?
How can I migrate my Vmware Server VM’s to ESX?
How do I upgrade a existing virtual disk from BusLogic to LSI Logic?

This Xtravirt utility is designed to reduce the time to deploy and configure VMWare ESX 3 servers and well as eliminate inconsistencies that can arise with manual operations. This Windows GUI based utility is based upon similar functionality of the VMware Web based Scripted Installer but with the additional options of creating post configuration files and loading and saving configurations for repeated use. Complete the form and select the Save option from the toolbar or File menu to generate a pre-configured deployment file. The resulting file can then be used to automatically deploy a fully configured VMWare ESX 3 server. There is tool tip help for each line in the form as well as a help page in the Help menu. All fields must be completed, and a partition file created/selected to create a valid custom configuration file. The resulting ks.cfg file is written in binary format so is fully compatible with Linux Operating Systems.

When you have created a DRS cluster the virtual machines in this cluster are automatically migrated to the least busy ESX host. These migrations depend on VMotion. The most common show stopper for VMotion is a connected CD. This application checks if one of your virtual machines is connected to a CD and displays witch ISO image is connected. I’ve written this application in VB.net and it depends on the VIClient.dll witch is written by Robert Baumstark. Some features like disconnecting all the CD’s with one click of a button are not implemented yet, but I’m so proud of my first application that I published it on my weblog anyway :). If you want to give it a try, you can get a free copy here.

During the VMware TTT DSA class in march 2007 two of my fellow VMware trainers discovered how to use the vim sh command to put an ESX server into maintenance mode. After the information was posted in the Dutch VMware user group I discovered that there are a lot of other undocumented possibility’s regarding he vim sh command. I tried to squeeze some extra information from Jeremy van Doorn during an interview I recorded at the TSX in Nice. After a lot of hacking I created a script witch you can use to lookup witch hardware is in your ESX server. Last week Gavin Jolliffe and Paul Davey from Xtravirt published the Guide to VMware ‘vimsh’ white paper. This paper discusses the currently undocumented VMware ESX ‘vimsh’ command and seeks to explore its options and possibilities at a high level. This paper assumes the reader has good technical knowledge of VMWare Virtual Infrastructure 3 together with some basic scripting experience.

Solko brought me up to date with another great tip. When you are tired of all the error message’s Winscp is giving you and you want to integrate SSH and all the other functions you are using to communicate with you VMware ESX server in just one program, you may want to take a look at a great tool with the name Tunnelier. This tool is a friendly and flexible SSH client for Windows which includes state of the art terminal emulation, graphical as well as command-line SFTP support, an FTP-to-SFTP bridge, powerful tunneling features including dynamic port forwarding through integrated proxy, and also remote administration for our SSH server, WinSSHD. Tunnelier is free for individual use and you can get it here.

I had an interview with Scott Herold he told me that there are many challenges that exist in implementing a Virtual Infrastructure that fall across various levels of an organization. Find out from Scott Herold, one of the leading industry experts, how these challenges can be overcome and how you can be successful from both a technical and business perspective in your Virtual Infrastructure deployment Scott Herold is a VMware Authorized Consultant (VAC), a VMware Certified Professional (VCP), and the owner of www.vmguru.com, a leading virtualization forum. Herold has engineered and implemented some of the largest ESX Server solutions in the world, including those for several financial services and insurance companies. His solutions designs range from two to three physical server implementations to enterprise environments of more than 50 eight-way hosts. Herold is one of the most active participants in the VMware Technology Network Forums, an acknowledge expert in the virtualization field and recognized author of VMware ESX Server, Advanced Technical Guide. The photo is taken by Viktor van den Berg, on his website you can find more TSX photo's.

I had an interview with David Bieneman he will be discussing how esxMigrator has simplified and automated the conversion from ESX Server 2 to VI3, how esxCharter has simplified the monitoring, bill back and understanding of VI3 and why esxRanger has become the industry standard for backup and recovery of your virtual machines on VI3. The photo is taken by Viktor van den Berg, on his website you can find more TSX photo's.

I had an interview with Jacob Jensen, he is the product Manager Datacenter I/O, VMware As server consolidation ratios increase, ESX hosts will require ever more performance from the network. This session will describe how to maximize networking performance in large scale ESX environments. We will cover both current and future technologies that accelerate networking performance. Specific topics include: hardware assist technologies, 10 Gbps Ethernet, Inifinband and best practice network design for maximum performance. Jacob Jensen has over 9 years of experience in data networking and telecommunications. Prior to joining VMware, Jacob worked for Adomo Inc. as a product manager focusing on unified communications solutions for large enterprises. Priori to Adomo, Jacob spent 6 years at Cisco Systems as part of Catalyst 6500 team. Jacob holds a Masters of Science degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. The photo is taken by Viktor van den Berg, on his website you can find more TSX photo's.