Virtual Lifestyle

Booting a Lefthand SAN/iQ node requires a serial port

Aug 25, 2010 Blogs 1 Comment

When you’re booting a Lefthand Virtual SAN Appliance (this also applies to the Failover Manager), make sure you don’t disable ‘Serial port A’. It is required for console output, which is set to ‘ttyS0′ in the syslinux.cfg file of the underlying Linux OS:

So, make sure that the BIOS is set like this:

and not like this:

If you want more information about the boot process, use the ‘ESC’ key to abort the bootloader and type ‘vga’ in the ‘boot:’ prompt. This wil disable output to the serial port and enable output to the screen:

HP LeftHand Multi-Site SAN & VMware vSphere

Aug 25, 2010 Blogs Leave a comment

I’d like to warn you for a not-so-obviously documented fluke in the combination of a HP LeftHand (P4000) Multi-Site Cluster and VMware vSphere hosts on multiple sites.

The situation

HP LeftHand (P4000) Multi-Site Cluster

HP LeftHand Multi-Site Cluster requires the storage nodes to be divided into two subnets, one per site. Each subnet (or VLAN) requires a Virtual IP in that subnet.

Example

I.e.: VLAN 1 with Virtual IP 10.10.1.100 (/24) for site 1 which hold storage node 1 and storage 3 and VLAN 2 with Virtual IP 10.10.2.100 (/24) for site 2 which hold storage node 2 and storage node 4.

LUN Ownership

Whenever a LUN (or volume, in Lefthand’s CMC) on the LeftHand cluster is accessed by an iSCSI Initiator, that volume is bound to the Virtual IP (and thus subnet / VLAN) by which the LUN is accessed.

Example

I.e.: when an ESX-host on Site 1 rescans it’s vmhba38, the volumes presented to that ESX-server get bound to this site’s Virtual IP, which is in VLAN 1.

VMware ESX software iSCSI Initiator and multiple subnets

The VMware software iSCSI Initiator (and, by extension, the dependent hardware iSCSI Initiator) do not support accessing a iSCSI Target (or LeftHand Virtual IP) outside it’s own subnet.

Example

I.e.: the ESX-hosts on Site 2, which have their iSCSI adapter in VLAN 2, cannot traverse the network to access the LUN that is bound to VLAN1. They to a discovery to the Virtual IP in VLAN 2, but get redirected to the Virtual IP in VLAN 1, because that’s where the LUNs are bound to. You’ll see errors in  /var/log/messages about iscsid not being able to connect to the Virtual IP in VLAN 1.

The solution

Multiple VMkernel ports for iSCSI in multiple VLANs

The only way to maintain synchronous replication (‘Network RAID 10′ in LeftHand naming convention) is to maintain the HP LeftHand Multi-Site Cluster. This means maintaining the multiple VLANs for iSCSI. To enable hosts on site 2 to access the LUNs, you’ll need to configure additional VMkernel ports for iSCSI in the other VLAN. So in addition to the two VMkernel ports in VLAN 2 on an ESX-host in site 2, you’ll add two VMkernel ports in VLAN 1 on that ESX-host. On the ESX-hosts in site 1, you’ll add two VMkernel ports in VLAN 2.

The impact of this change is additional iSCSI traffic over the intersite link: not only does the replication traffic travel between sites, now also iSCSI traffic from the ESX-hosts in site 2 travels the intersite link to the storage nodes in site 1.

Another change in this environment is the added complexity to complete a site failover. You’ll need to rescan all software iSCSI adapters after the primary site has failed, because the LUNs are still attached to the (now failed) Virtual IP of the primary VLAN. By rescanning, the LUNs are attached to the Virtual IP of the other VLAN. If site 2 fails, only the replication is lost, as site 2 doesn’t do any iSCSI traffic with any of the ESX-hosts but merely does Network RAID 10 replication.

If you dare create a single vSphere Cluster, spanning HA/DRS across sites, VMware HA can take care of VM failover. If hosts on site 1 fail but storage is still alive, a rescan on the hosts on site 2 is needed before HA can restart the VM’s. You’d better be quick with that rescan! If hosts on site 2 fail, no rescan or other action is needed, as HA will restart VMs in the ESX-hosts in site 1 (because ESX-hosts in site 1 have an active session with the LUNs).

Dependent hardware iSCSI

Aug 25, 2010 Blogs 1 Comment

I’ve implemented a new five-node VMware vSphere cluster for a customer. The hardware we’re using are HP ProLiant DL360 G7′s. They’ve got the new Broadcom 5709c Gigabit Ethernet Adapters, which present themselves as both standard Ethernet network cards as well as storage controllers (‘Broadcom iSCSI Adapters’ in the Storage Adapter section of the host’s Configuration Tab). The main advantage of these dependent hardware iSCSI HBAs is the offloading of iSCSI traffic to the TCP/IP Offload Engine on the NICs, which reduces the amount of processor power needed for the iSCSI traffic. VMware describes dependent hardware iSCSI as “Depends on VMware networking, and iSCSI configuration and management interfaces provided by VMware. This type of adapter can be a card that presents a standard network adapter and iSCSI offload functionality for the same port. The iSCSI offload functionality depends on the host’s network configuration to obtain the IP, MAC, and other parameters used for iSCSI sessions.”

As they are dependent hardware iSCSI HBAs, you’ll need to use standard VMkernel components to make them work. In a nutshell, these are the steps you need to go through:

• There is a static relationship between a NIC port (vmnic#) and a dependent iSCSI HBA (vmhba##). Use ‘esxcli swiscsi vmnic list -d vmhba##’ to view which vmnic belongs to this vmhba.
  In my case, vmnic0 corresponds to vmhba32. vmnic1 corresponds to vmhba33.
• Create a VMkernel port on a vSwitch with a single uplink (choose one of the vmnics which have a corresponding vmhba).
  I’ve created two vSwitch Port Groups: iSCSI0 and iSCSI1. iSCSI0 has vmk0 with uplink vmnic0, iSCSI1 has vmk1 with uplink vmnic1.
• Bind the vmk# to a vmhba in such a way that the uplink on the vSwitch of the VMkernel port corresponds with the vmhba##. Use ‘esxcli swiscsi nic add -n vmk# -d vmhba##’.
  I’ve bound vmk0 to vmhba32 and vmk1 to vmhba33.
• Verify that all is well with ‘esxcli swiscsi nic list -d vmhba##’

Some points to take into account:

VMware announces inaugural VMUG Board of Directors

Jul 21, 2010 Blogs 1 Comment

An e-mail from the VMware User Group Team:

As announced earlier this year, VMware is supporting the establishment of an independent, customer-led, customer-driven global VMware User Group (VMUG). The VMUG Steering Committee has been focused on forming the structure for this new organization and we are pleased to announce the inaugural VMware User Group Board of Directors.

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VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4.1

Jul 13, 2010 Blogs 2 Comments

The big news today is the release of VMware vSphere 4.1, but let’s not forget SRM! From the release notes:

New in This Release

This release of Site Recovery Manager introduces several new features and fixes:

• Full compatibility with vCenter 4.1.
• Support for IP customization of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Test recovery times have been improved for ESX 4.0.1 hosts that use iSCSI arrays.
• Full compatibility with vCenter Solution Licensing.
• New configuration file options: change guest operating system shutdown retry timeout when customizing IP address during recovery, and change datastore discovery timeout during recovery (see Configuration Notes).
• Full support for networks backed by a VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) at the protected and recovery sites.
• Fixes for several problems identified in previous releases. For more information, see VMware Knowledge Base Articles 1019890, 1021827, 1021491, 1021829, 1017882, 1021919, and 1021920.

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Per Virtual Machine Licensing

Jul 13, 2010 Blogs 1 Comment

A couple of products will change licensing model from a per-socket to a per-vm model.

What You Need to Know About Per VM Licensing

As cloud computing becomes the norm in IT environments, IT increasingly needs to manage at the virtual machine (VM) level rather than the physical hardware from which it is abstracted. With virtual machines now being the new unit of management, IT organizations need flexible deployment and licensing options that fit the demands of the new model.

Starting September 1, 2010, some VMware vCenter products will transition from the existing per processor licensing to per VM licensing. Other vCenter products will continue to be sold under existing licensing models.

How Much Will the Per VM Licenses Cost?

Products will be sold in packs of 25 virtual machine licenses (prices do not include SnS). This is a more cost-effective way for customers to implement the management products since it eliminates the need to license them on a per processor basis.

*VMware vCenter CapacityIQ will be offered in a per VM model beginning at the end of 2010 / early 2011, and you can continue buying per processor licenses for vCenter CapacityIQ until then.

As noted above, customers who have purchased per processor licenses for these products prior to September 1, 2010, will be eligible to exchange their licenses to receive a specific number of per VM licenses for each per processor license.

VMware will provide more details for existing customers in the coming weeks.

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Introducing VMware vSphere 4.1

Jul 13, 2010 Blogs 2 Comments

I’ve been away for a long time (almost two months), but with a good excuse, I think. I’ve been in the process of buying a house, so I’ve gone through the financial and administrative bureaucracy, bought new furniture, a new kitchen and have been packing and cleaning up my current place. Besides that, I’ve been incredibly busy at work, creating many documents for standard workflows for project implementations of VMware vSphere and a reference architecture for coworkers so they know what they need to think of when implementing VMware vSphere. And lastly, I rediscovered my passion to go sailing, which takes up a couple of my evenings and weekends, especially with the good summer weather in the Netherlands lately.

But a couple of documents on VMware’s Partner Central caught my eye. I found loads of PDFs and Powerpoint presentations demonstrating vSphere 4.1′s new features and improvements. I just couldn’t let this one slip by. It even seemed I was right on time, forbidding publication until only a couple of hours later. So, What’s New and Improved? Quite a lot, actually:

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Citrix XenClient in my home lab, part 2

May 14, 2010 Blogs 5 Comments

In my earlier post, I showed you some videos on installing and configuring XenClient but also some basic stuff about the options in Virtual Machine as well as the client-side interaction with the Synchroniser. I’ll dive deeper into both the virtual machines and the Synchroniser. Also, I’ll insert some of  my semi-random thoughts about the whole package along the way.
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Citrix XenClient in my home lab, part 1

May 14, 2010 Blogs 4 Comments

I just learned that Citrix released a Release Candidate of their Client Hypervisor. I noticed my laptop, a Dell Latitude E6500, is compatible with XenClient, and decided to set up a home lab.

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VMware Workstation 7.1 RC, issues with Software Updates

May 9, 2010 Blogs 1 Comment

I found this in the community site of the latest release of VMware Workstation 7.1:

Many of our users are encountering issues with our Software Updates feature. We appreciate your patience and thank you for helping us iron out the bugs before we make the Workstation 7.1 release generally available.

We will be posting a second Release Candidate shortly to ensure that the issues that have been reported have been fixed.

In the meantime, if you are running Windows Vista or above on a non-English host operating system, and attempting to update your Beta fails after granting UAC access please try replacing vmUpdateLauncher.exe. A new version of this file and more details can be found here:

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