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Posts Tagged ‘vSphere’

When looking for performance data in vCenter 4.1 from the past week, month or year, I got the message “Performance data is currently not available for this entry”. Only real time data is visible in vSphere client.

In the vCenter Service Status the warning “Performance statistics rollup from Past Day to Past Week is not occurring in the database” appeared.

The vCenter server is installed on MS Windows 2008 R2 and uses vCenter server version 4.1 Update 2 Build 491557 with Microsoft SQL Server 2008  Express R2 64-bit.

When looking in the VMware Product Interoperability matrixes, it says is a supported configuration.

Searching on the VMTN I found more people who are experiencing this problem. The following KB article says:

To resolve this issue, migrate the SQL database to a full edition (32bit or 64bit) or a 32bit SQL Express edition. For more information on how to move the vCenter Server SQL database, see Moving the vCenter Server SQL database (7960893).

For small environments this is not an option! When installing vCenter 4.1 Update 2, the MS SQL Express 2005 database is default installed. MS SQL Express 2005 is 32-bit and you can have a maximum database size of 4GB. With MS SQL Server 2008 Express R2 64-bit you can have maximum database size of 10GB. 

vCenter 5 installs by default MS SQL Server 2008 Express R2 64-bit and doesn’t have this bug.

The MS SQL Express database is only supported for test and small VMware environments (5 hosts and 50 VMs maximum).

So watch out when considering MS SQL Server 2008 Express R2 64-bit and vCenter 4!

When using a whitebox lab environment at home and like to test for example vSphere 5, vCloud Director, VMware View and MS Hyper-V (nested in VMware vSphere ) you need a lot of processor power and memory. In almost all whitebox lab environment the processor power is not the problem but the amount of memory is.

Till now the Sandy Bridge desktop boards support up to 32GB memory with only four DIMM slots on the motherboard. For 32GB you need 4 * 8GB DIMMs, 8GB DIMMs are very expensive on the moment when writing this post.

Intel Introduced the Sandy Bridge-E  processors and motherboards with the X79 based chipset that support this processors. This gives new possibilities for building a new whitebox home lab.

Processor

Intel introduced the Sandy Bridge-E or the 2nd generation Core i7 Extreme Processors. On the moment there are two Sandy Bridge-E processors available:

- Intel Core-I7-3960X 3,3GHz,15M L3-cache, list price around €950,00

- Intel Core-I7-3930K 3,2GHz,12M L3-cache, list price around € 550,00

As you can see the processors are pretty expensive. The Sandy Bridge-E has the following features:

- Socket LGA2011;

- 6 cores (12 cores with Hyper-Threading);

- Quad channel DDR3-1600 memory controller;

- Supports Hyper-Threading, Intel VT-x, VT-d;

- PCI-Express 3.0 support;

- 40 PCI-Express lanes;

- Max TDP 130 W;

- Multiplier unlocked.

The 2nd generation Core i7 Extreme Processors can be compared here.

Begin 2012 Intel will release the Core I7 3820 Sandy Bridge-E processor. This  processor will support 4 cores (8 with Hyper-Threading) and have 10MB L3-cache. The price is not announced yet but will be much lower as the Intel 3930K and 3960X processors. When you buy a Sandy Bridge-E processor there is no CPU cooler in the box. 

Motherboard

The Intel X79 chipset support the Socket LGA2011. To choose a motherboard you can for example check the following things:

- How much DIMM slots it has (some X79 motherboard have 4 DIMM slots);

- How much expansion slots it has;

- Price;

- How many USB ports and what speed they have;

- Type and number of SATA controllers;

- Type of number of NIC(s).

Important for a whitebox lab configuration is that the SATA controller (if you want to use local storage) and NIC(s) are supported by VMware ESXi. When choosing a motherboard with enough expansion slots you can always add extra RAID and NIC cards that are supported.

The most X79 based motherboards have 8 DIMM slots and supports up to 64GB memory.  8GB memory modules are expensive. So you can make a configuration with 8 x 4GB = 32 GB DDR-3 memory which is much cheaper. When 8GB memory modules become cheaper you can upgrade to 64GB memory.

Asus has a nice overview of all the X79 bases series motherboards they have, found here.

Shopping list

I made a shopping without the case, storage and the power supply. The prices are taken from the Tweakers pricewatch (Dutch) an can change every day.

Shopping list:

Conclusion

With the Sandy Bridge-E processor and X79 based motherboard you can build a monster whitebox lab environment with the best performance on the moment.

The advantage of using one huge whitebox you can use nesting to run your VMware vSphere and MS Hyper-V environment(s) on one box. An other advantage of using a whitebox is that you can make a low noise system. It’s a lot of money for a whitebox home lab environment but if you you wait for the Intel Core I7 3820 Sandy Bridge-E processor (announced in January 2012) can save you around €270,00 (this is an assumption because the list prices are not available yet).

Here is a collection of storage Best Practices from different vendors on VMware vSphere.

HP

HP Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) family with VMware vSphere 4.0, 4.1 and 5.0 Configuration Best practices

Download

Running VMware vSphere 4 on HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solutions

Download

Best Practices for deploying VMware and vSphere 4 with VMware High Availability and Fault Tolerance on HP P4500 Multi-Site SAN cluster

Download

HP P4000 LeftHand Solutions with VMware vSphere Best Practices (incl. vSphere 5)

Download

3PAR Utility Storage with VMware vSphere

Download

HP P2000 Software  Plug-in for VMware VAAI

Download

NetApp

NetApp Storage Best Practices for VMware vSphere TR-3749

Version 3.0, last updated: December 2011

Download

EMC

Using EMC VNX Storage with VMware vSphere

Version 1.0

Download

Using VMware vSphere with EMC Symmetrix Storage

Download

EMC Powerpath/VE for VMware vSphere Best Practices planning

Download

Dell

Configuring iSCSI Connectivity with VMware vSphere 5 and Dell Equallogic PS Series Storage TR1075

Disaster Recovery with Dell Equallogic PS Series SAN and VMware vSphere Site Recovery Manager 5 TR1073

V1.0 September 2011

Download

Sizing and Best Practices for Deploying VMware View 4.5 on VMware vSphere 4.1 with Dell Equallogic Storage

Download

Configure VMware vSphere Software ISCSI with Dell Equallogic PS Series Storage

Download

Sizing and Best Practices for Microsoft Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere and Equallogic storage

Download

Hitachi

Optimizing the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform in vSphere Environments

Download

IBM

IBM Storage N series and VMware vSphere Storage Best Practices

Download

Update:

22-02-2012 HP P2000 Software Plug-in for VMware VAAI

21-11-2011 Add Configuring iSCSI Connectivity with VMware vSphere 5 and Dell EqualLogic PS Series Storage

If you have other storage best practices let me know.

When you start the Remote Tech Support (TSM) service on a VMware ESXi host a warning and the following message will appear:

Remote Tech Support Mode (SSH) for the host … has been enabled

When the warning appears some Admins get a little nervous. Since VMware ESXi 4.1 Update 2 and VMware ESXi 5 the warning can be suppressed.

When starting the Remote Tech Support (TSM) service it is possible to SSH to the ESXi host.

The following script can start or stop the Remote Tech Support mode and suppress the warnings on the VMware ESXi hosts.

<#
.SYNOPSIS
  Enable or Disable TSM 
.VERSION
 1.0
.DESCRIPTION
  TSM-SSH Remote Tech Support (SSH) 
.NOTES
  Author(s): Ivo Beerens 
.EXAMPLE
  PS> ./tsm.ps1
#>
 
Add-PSSnapin vmware.VimAutomation.core -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
 
# VMware VirtualCenter server name 
$VCserver = read-host "Enter your vCenter server"
$Username= read-host "Enter the username"
$Password = read-host "Enter password"
 
# Connect to the vCenter server 
Connect-VIServer $VCserver -User $Username -Password $Password -port 443
 
# Menu
Write-Host "Choose Start or to stop the Remote Tech Support (SSH)service"
Write-Host " 1. Start Remote Tech Support (SSH)"
Write-Host " 2. Stop Remote Tech Support (SSH)"
$response = Read-Host "Select 1 or 2"
 
if ($response -eq 1){
#Start
get-vmhost | Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "UserVars.SuppressShellWarning" -Value 1
get-vmhost | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.key -eq "TSM-SSH"} | Start-VMHostService 
}
 
if ($response -eq 2){
#Stop
get-vmhost | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.key -eq "TSM-SSH"} | Stop-VMHostService -Confirm:$false
get-vmhost | Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "UserVars.SuppressShellWarning" -Value 0 
}

With the announcement of VMware vSphere 5 a complete new license model is introduces.

In VMware vSphere 4 the licensing model was per physical processor based on the number of cores per CPU and the physical memory.

The VMware vSphere 5 license model is based per physical processor and the allocated memory (vRAM) across the entire vSphere environment for a particular vSphere 5 edition (pool).

VMware has released a video which explains the new vSphere 5 licensing model.

Update 15 august 2011:

VMware has announced an update in the licensing for vSphere 5. They listens to their customers and changed the licensing. The following things have been updated:

- The vRAM entitlements are increased. See the new entitlements in this post.

- Capped amount of vRAM that is counted for a VM with a max of 1 vSphere Enterprise license (96GB). So an 1TB VM cost 96GB.

- More flexible around transient workloads, and short-term spikes that are typical in test & development environments for example. We will now calculate a 12-month average of consumed vRAM to rather than tracking the high water mark of vRAM.

- VMware launched an official tool “The VMware vSphere Licensing Advisor”. This tool  allows users with vSphere 4.1, vSphere 4.0 and Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 environments to calculate and understand their vRAM usage and vRAM capacity as if they upgraded to vSphere 5.0.

Everything in red text is updated.

vSphere 5 licensing facts:

- vRAM = virtual memory configured to a Virtual Machine

- Pooled vRAM = sum of all vRAM entitlements across all vSphere 5 licenses from the same edition in one or more vCenter(s) servers in linked mode

- Only powered-on VMs a counted in the total vRAM.

- vRAM pool must be licensed with the same vSphere edition.

- You can multiple vRAM pools in one or more vCenter servers for example a vSphere 5 standard and vSphere 5 Enterprise license pool

- The vSphere 4 Advanced edition is removed and customers get a free upgrade to Enterprise

vSphere editions and vRAM entitlement

The following vSphere 5 editions are available:

How many licenses do I need?

For existing customers before upgrading to vSphere 5 you need to know if the upgrade can without needing extra licenses.

To calculate how many licenses you need to sum up the total amount of vRAM allocated in all the powered-on VMs and divide that to total amount by the for the particular vSphere 5 edition you are running. Here are two customer cases:

Customer example 1

Stretched cluster across two sites. One VMware vCenter server and 19 VMware vSphere 4 hosts. 2 Clusters.

vSphere host hardware:

- HP Proliant DL 380 G6

- 2 x Intel Xeon 5500 CPUs

- 48 GB memory

No additional licenses will be required for this environment.

Customer example 2

Two sites, on every site one vCenter server and 4 VMware vSphere 4 hosts with VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM).

vSphere host hardware:

- HP Proliant DL 380 G7

- 2 x Intel Xeon 5650 CPUs

- 72 GB memory

Site 1

Site 2

No additional licenses will be required for this environment even if the 288 GB RAM cannot be full used. This because of the reservation of  an X amount of memory in your cluster for the hypervisor,  maintenance mode and High Availability (HA).

Cons of the new vSphere 5 licensing

VMware listening to there customers and increased for example the vRAM entitlements. To most of the cons do not apply anymore.

- Customers are or going to upgrade to Microsoft Windows 2008 R2. Our Windows 2008 R2 templates are based 4GB of more depending on the task the VM gets. As we take 4GB as average the following 4GB VMs can be placed with 100% memory use:

- The CPU core to memory ratio can be very low. For example for a six core CPU with hyper-treading and a standard license gives a very low ratio 1:1 if we use 4GB VMs. 

- You may loss the the flexibility to scale-up the memory without invest in extra vSphere licenses. I have seen a lot of customers who upgrade the memory of their vSphere hosts within 3 a 4 years. With the new vSphere 5 licensing this can lead in buying extra licenses.

- The vSphere 5 Hypervisor version supports 8GB per CPU, a dual CPU sockets hosts gives u 16GB RAM. On this server you can place 3,5 Windows 2008 R2 VM with 4GB VMs. I think the vSphere 5 Hypervisor isn’t going to be used anymore because other hypervisors haven’t this restriction and even offer more functionality.

- No benefit for memory technics such as memory over allocation because the licensing is based on virtual memory configured to a Virtual Machine (vRAM)

Tools

Before upgrading to vSphere 5 you need to know if the upgrade can without needing extra licenses. Here’s are some great PowerCLI script the examine the vRAM usage and licenses used  in your current vSphere environment:

- vSphere Licensing Advisor. The VMware vSphere Licensing Advisor allows users with vSphere 4.1, vSphere 4.0 and Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 environments to calculate and understand their vRAM usage and vRAM capacity as if they upgraded to vSphere 5.0. The tool will show you the vRAM capacity and usage for each vSphere 5.0 equivalent edition.

- License Validator by Alan Renouf

- Query vRAM by Luc Dekens

- Calculate vSphere 5 licenses by Hugo Peeters

Other stuff:

- VMware vSphere 5.0 Licensing, Pricing and Packaging whitepaper

- Virtual License Calculator by Rynard Spies

- vKernel free CapacityView tool

VMware has a white paper about the vSphere 5 new licensing structure and can be found here. There is also a vSphere 5 licensing discussion on the VMware Community.

VDI licenses

For VDI desktops VMware a “vSphere Desktop” package license is introduces. This license is a lot easier to understand. For a 100 concurrent desktop license you pay $6500, that is $65 per desktop regardless the processors, memory you have.

More on the desktop licenses:

- VMware blog about the new desktop license

- VMware FAQ about the desktop license

I hope VMware will make the right decisions on the vSphere 5 licensing structure so we can use this great hypervisor for a long time.