StarWind goes freestyle
May 17, 2011 Blogs
Back in the day, I used StarWind iSCSI Target a lot in as an instructor in training sessions. I let students configure a simple iSCSI Target to get some storage up-and-running for them to attach to the vSphere cluster they were building, so they could do all the funky VMware-stuff, like vMotion, HA and DRS. StarWind was an ideal solution, because, well, it was free and Windows-based. The effort it took to get the product in working order was minimal enough not to distract the students from focussing on what’s important.
So I was bummed out to see the free version of StarWind disappear. With an equally strong positive reaction, I noticed that the free version has somehow made it back into the wild. As of May 16th, StarWind Free iSCSI SAN has been made available again. It still installs on top of Windows, provides full snapshot and backup capabilities, it even does some dedup and caching magic. Best of all, no license is restricting you from using all this in a production environment.
Download it right here.
Locked yourself out of vCenter?
May 11, 2011 Blogs
We recently took over operational administration of a big school in the Netherlands. The previous system administrators had fiddled around with permissions and roles a little too much, effectively removing all permissions for all users and groups for the root object in VMware vCenter.
Obviously, this resulted in a unmanageable environment, and actions had to be taken.
First off, I thank the previous system administrator for not messing up the SQL permissions: I could still access the database-instance using my credentials. Also, luckily, a group called ‘VMware Administrators’ still had some permissions in vCenter: this group had ‘Read Only’ permissions on an individual virtual machine. This made editted the database a bit easier, but it is in no way required.
By simply replacing two values in the vCenter database, I changed two settings:
- Changing the permissions from ‘Read Only’ to ‘Administrator’ for the given group
- Changing the object to which these permissions are applied from the virtual machine to the root object
So, how did I do this? Using the database administration tools, I did the following:
- In the VPX_ACCESS table I changed ROLE_ID from ‘-2′ (‘Read Only’) to ‘-1′ (‘Administrator’) for the given PRINCIPAL (which contains the value ‘VMware Administrators’, the group I was looking for)
- In the same table, I changed ENTITY_ID from the given value to ’1′, which stands for ‘Datacenters’, otherwise known as the root object.
After a quick restart of the vCenter services, I was able to access the environment with proper permissions for the given group again, including all nested objects, indicating that inheritance was set up properly, too.
Welcoming a new sponsor to my blog
May 11, 2011 Blogs
As of today, Virtual Lifestyle is sponsored by StarWind. I would like to welcome them aboard and thank them for choosing to work together with me!
Taking this opportunity, I would like to invite you to join StarWind in a webinar:
Denny Cherry: Best Practices in Enterprise Storage Virtualization and Backup
Denny Cherry, Microsoft MVP in SQL Server will explain how Active-Active High Availability simplifies your endpoint data protection solution and the importance of Deduplication in your storage virtualization and backup strategy.
Register now to learn about these topics and more:
- Use Active-Active High Availability to simplify storage management and increase continuous data and application availability.
- Benefits and features of High Availability Storage for server failover clustering, eliminating a single point of failure.
- Deduplication – reduce data storage costs by eliminating duplicated blocks of data.
Title: Best Practices in Enterprise Storage Virtualization and Backup
Date:Tue, May 24, 2011 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT - Register Now
Denny Cherry has over a decade of experience managing SQL Server, including MySpace.com’s 175+ million user installation, one of the largest in the world. Denny’s areas of technical expertise includes system architecture, performance tuning, replication and troubleshooting. Denny uses these skills on a regular basis in his current role as a Sr. Database Administrator and Architect at Awareness Technologies. Denny currently holds several Microsoft Certifications related to SQL Server as well as being a Microsoft MVP. Denny is a longtime member of PASS and Quest Software’s Association of SQL Server Experts and has written numerous technical articles on SQL Server management.
Oh, and don’t forget to vote for me in the ‘Server Room Beauty Contest‘:
