Virtual Architect

This week the rumours about XenSource being swallowed by Citrix were increasing.

So it wasn’t a big surprise that Citrix today annouced that they signed an agreement to acquire XenSource a leader in enterpise-grade virtual infrstructure solution as stated at the website of Citrix.

With this move it will probably integrate XenSource into its "Desktop Server" product. It would’t surpise me that in a way the virtualization part of Desktop Server will develop in a way that it will favour the XenSource technology. With this move Citrix definitely strenghtens its position in the virtualization market.

Justin Zarb at Tech-Ed Bloggers posted two Virtualization videos from Teched 2007 in Australia.

Quote:"So I will be posting some great Virtualization Video’s from TechEd 2007 over the next couple of days! These were two great Videos around Windows Server Virtualization (Which had more people hitting these stands than you could shake a stick at!). These Video’s are here to help dismiss some of the myths around the Windows Server Virtualization platform!"

Watch them at his post here! or watch them directly: video1, video2

At the moment I am preparing a new datacenter for the platform. All the current hardware is end of life and besides consolidating applications, moving the stuff to a new datacenter gives us the opportunity to upgrade the OS and applications as well. One of the things that popped up is moving the database of current virtual center. However one detail is the difference between the versions of SQL.

Being not the only database to move, the virtual center database is planned to be moved based on previous experience with other databases.

Before starting moving right away lets get the steps right:

• backup!!
• collect info about database (jobs/users/maintenance plan)
• detach database (SQL 2000)
• copy database files
• attach database (SQL 2005)
• remove orphaned users (if they exist)
• Check ODBC settings

The steps are explained in part two which will follow shortly.

Update: part two is available here

Some time ago I was converting a virtual domain with vm’s in Microsoft vmc(vhd)-format to VMware’s vmx(vmdk)-format. Some of them worked right out of the box after converting them. Others did not work, to be specific they worked up to some point at least they seemed to freeze when sending CTRL-ALT-DEL.

The strange thing was that not all but just a few of the vm’s of the converted domain were "freezing". Taking a closer look at the operating systems I noticed the servers were running different versions of Windows 2003 server: enterprise vs standard. But this still did not explain the strange behaviour.

I used the vm’s in a VMware Server scenario. Connecting to them using the VMware Server Console resulted in a freeze (no reaction to keyboard and mouse). By converting the vm’s to VMware format they received new unconfigured network adapters (they were set to DHCP). The fact they got a dhcp-address saved me some work.

Using RDP I was able to connect to the vm’s (on their dhcp address). Connecting like this worked straight away, no freeze occurred. Thats what triggered me to look at the VM additions from Microsoft.

Looking at the drivers for the mouse and keyboard I noticed that they used the Microsoft Vm additions drivers. I managed to fix the issue to roll back the drivers, for both the keyboard and the mouse. After a roll-back of the mouse and keyboard drivers and a reboot of the server I was able to control the vm’s again using the vmware console.

Together with ESX 3.0.2 VMware released VCB (VMware Consolidated Backup) 1.0.3.

This release of VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) version 1.0.3, offers the following improvements:

• Support for iSCSI Storage
  VMware Consolidated Backup now supports iSCSI storage in addition to Fibre Channel storage. Virtual machines residing on any iSCSI arrays listed in the Storage/SAN Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 3.x may now be backed up through the VMware Consolidated Backup framework.
• Enhancements in Snapshot Functionality
  This release includes a feature in the integration modules for VCB to remove old snapshots remaining from previous backup jobs if the previous backup job failed to remove the old snapshots.
• New Method to Identify Virtual Machines
  Before backing up a virtual machine using vcbMounter in the service console, you need to specify the virtual machine you want to back up. Prior to this release, virtual machines were identified using their DNS name or IP address only. This release supports identifying virtual machines by their display name when performing queries. Use this option if you have multiple virtual machines with the same IP address, but with different names.
• Better Flexibility in Fibre Channel Configuration
  Previously, VCB would not function correctly if LUNs were presented with different LUN IDs to the ESX Server(s) and the proxy. This resolved issue allows VCB to work with arrays that do not guarantee consistent LUN numbering. This only applies to virtual disks backed by VMFS disks, not by RDMs.
• New Backup Software Support
  New support for the following backup software versions:
  • Legato Networker version 7.3.2 Jumbo Update 1
  • Veritas NetBackup version 6.0
  • Symantec Backup Exec version 11d
  • Tivoli TSM Storage Agent version 5.3.3
• VCB Proxy Operating System Support
  New support for the following operating systems to be used as a VCB proxy server:
  • Windows 2003 SP2
  • Windows 2003 R2 SP2

Besides these improvements there are a bunch of BUGs fixed in this release.

ESX 3.0.2 and Virtual Center 2.0.2 are needed for this version of VCB.

See release notes.

On August 1st, VMware released the long awaited 3.0.2 version of ESX or VI-3 if you like. This version originally was planned to be released in Q1 of 2007. Due to reasons I do not know the existance of the releasedate was postponed to yesterday. I am sure that I am not the first one to write about this, especially when it concerns an update which involves the flagship of VMware. Look here or here and of course on the site of VMware to see more details.

A brief description of new features (release notes):

• Bugfixes
• Support for extra operating systems (w2k3 sp2 etc)
• driver updates
• The new vmkerrcode utility allows you to display a table of all VMkernel errors, a brief description, and the corresponding error codes in both decimal and hexadecimal format
• Support for newest versions of systemmanagement software (HP Insight Manager, DELL OpenManage)
• Wyse Multimedia Support can now be installed into compatible guest operating systems using the VMware Tools Installer
• New hardware support (DELL)
• Support for additional backup software from third-party vendors
• VMware Consolidate Backup 1.0.3 (with ESX 3.0.2) supports iSCSI storage in addition to fiber channel storage

Be aware that you need to have the latest version (2.0.2) of Virtual Center to be able to manage it in a way that is supported by VMware (only if you use VC of course).