HOWTO manage HP P400 RAID controller in a vSphere whitebox
A while ago I posted an article about my ESX whitebox and the HP P400 RAID controller I use in this whitebox server. At that time, I used ESXi 3.5 and there was no way I could configure or get the status from the RAID controller. Fortunately, someone commented that it was possible when using the regular ESX (no i) version by installing some HP software packages. I’ve been using ESXi 4 for some time now, but it was quiet annoying when of my disks died and I wasn’t informed about it or could not check the status, other than by restarting the server. I have switched to ESX 4 and now I want to be able to check and configure my P400 RAID controller. And I can! This is how I did it: … Continue Reading
Long distance VMotion??
You might already know by now that the session catalog for VMWorld 2009 is online. Some interesting sessions caught my attention. Here are some of them:
Long distance VMotion
We will discuss best practices for setting up VMotion domains over long distances using existing hardware technology and VMware vSphere product. Will cover specific configurations that have been tried and known to work well. Will present use cases that solve practical problems. Will also discuss upcoming technologies that can help overcome limitations in the existing solutions and enable a wider range of applications. … Continue Reading
Xtravirt : How to install ESX 4.0 on Workstation 6.5.2 as a VM
I already wrote an articly last week concerning the 1st week of general availability of vSphere and refered to Roy Mikes’ article about installing ESX on VMware Workstation but now Xtravirt, known by their usefull PDF’s concerning these issues have released their howto “How to install ESX 4.0 on Workstation 6.5.2 as a VM“. Their PDF, wich is behind closed doors (just register, it’s free), also describes how to configure your ESX VM so that you can run nested VM’s.
I say it’s a must have : http://xtravirt.com/node/177.
Off course I directly update our Usefull Links section with it, if you don’t know it check it out !
VMware vSphere Fault Tolerance Simulation
There is a nice simulation of VMware vSphere FT available on the net I want to share with you. During the simulation you have the possability to enable FT logging, enable FT for a VM and simulate a faillure of the primary VM which is running FT.
You can access the Flash simulator here:
http://www.vmwareinfo.com/2009/06/training-lab-simulator-for-vsphere.html
It’s a short simulation of how FT works in the real world without installing multiple VMware vSphere hosts and VM’s. The simulator allows you to activate FT and shows the benefit of this technology.
Reduce MS licensing costs by 95% !!! in a virtualized environment.
This sounds impossible but when I read Gabe’s article correctly he brings back Microsoft OS licensing costs of about $800.000 (for 200 physical hosts) back to just $40.000 (for 200 virtual hosts). Of course this presents an ideal situation.
The situation Gabe describes:
- 200 physical hosts -> 200 virtual guests on 7 physical hosts
- virtualization solution can be any: MS, Citrix, VMware or other
… Continue Reading
