Doyenz only sells through the reseller channel.

Several resellers, managed service providers (MSPs) and systems integrators told me that they were impressed with this technical introduction.

Since Doyenz received a lot of requests after the webinar for a step-by-step technical walkthrough of how to backup VMware virtual machines using Doyenz, they just published an article to address these requests so we are linking to it here.

Read more…

Whether you are a server, network, or VMware Admin, a common tool for analyzing network issues is a protocol analyzer (also called packet analyzer or “sniffer”). These software applications analyze network traffic in real-time to allow you to view the packets traversing a network. These tools will tell you what network device is creating the most traffic on the network, what protocols are most being used on the network, who is talking to who on the LAN, and if there are network errors. If packets are being sent in clear-text, you can even decode that text to see things like passwords.

Promiscuous Mode on the Virtual Network

But what happens when the network is virtual? Don’t worry, this same process can also be performed on a virtual switch, allowing you to see all traffic traversing a virtual switch or vDS. What you would do is to run a protocol analyzer like Wireshark (free edition) inside a virtual machine and then configure the port group where the VM is connected to be in promiscuous mode, like this:

To read the full article , please visit Petri IT Knowledgebase
http://www.petri.co.il/using-packet-analyzer-on-virtual-network.htm

This issue has not come up very often but with more admins working remotely these days and not being able to touch the hardware. This can be a life saver if no one is at the site or the process is slow. What I needed to do was reset the server in a particular slot and the reset option from the Onboard Administrator console was not getting the job done. So someone informed me of the following option. I need to do this for two different reasons that I can think of. First was due to a firmware issue that was making the blade power off a few seconds after turning it on and the second reason was due to an issue with the blades iLO card.

What the following command does is completely power off the blade slot and back on. This is the same thing as removing the blade from chassis and reseating it.

What you can do is to SSH into the chassis via the OA address that you would normally HTTP into.

The issue the following command to reset the specific blade. Just insert the bay number of the blade that is giving you the trouble.

reset server <bay #>

Brian Suhr is a Senior Virtualization Engineer and Architect working for HP Enterprise Services. He’s worked in the IT Industry since 1991, and worked for several companies. He runs the blog virtualizetips to document tips and problems encountered during his projects and reads. A VMware Certified Professional (VCP VI3.5) MCSE on Windows NT – 2000, Cisco CCNA/CCDA. Brian is currently working on upgrading my VCP to vSphere and will be pursuing VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) next.

This week I have been working on setting up the SAN Fabric in a new part of a clients Datacenter. Within the last week new HP EVA and HP XP storage arrays were delivered and cabled up along with several HP C7000 Blade chassis. Now that some of the core network switching has been completed I can now reach the new Brocade DCX switches that are installed. I am new to Brocade SAN switches so I will probably be writing a few posts to help me get up to speed with the setup and basic management of them.

The first that that had to be done was to assign an IP to each of the mgmt ports. Each DCX chassis has 2 mgmt ports which are CP0 and CP1 along with a Virtual IP. The virtual IP is also servers as a load balancer kind of because it allows you to point DCFM or your browser to this one IP for the Brocade switch and no matter which of the mgmt ports is active it will allow you to connect. Below I have taken a couple of basic screen shots of the IP setup and console, these were taken by using a web browser to connect directly to the switch and the Java based console opens up.

In the image below is the main console screen that gives you a lot of details about the switch. You can see the DCX series of Brocade switches is a Chassis based series and from the visual below you will see which modules are in different blade slots. This switch has 2 management cards and 2 ICL cards for linking to other chassis. From what I was told by the Brocade engineer is that to use the ICL links it requires extra licensing and is quite expensive, this client has elected to not use them at this time and we will be connecting the switches via ISL links.

The next screen is from the switch admin section. During this initial phase we are setting the Virtual IP and the two mgmt IP addresses. Along with the IP setup we also are setting the unique Domain ID for each switch. There are sure to be other settings but these were the minimum settings to get them on the network and get DCFM talking to the switches. From the image below the the IP #1 is the Virtual IP and the #2 and #3 are for the two management ports. Be sure to setup the proper gateway and subnet mask settings or you will loose network connectivity to the switch.

Brian Suhr is a Senior Virtualization Engineer and Architect working for HP Enterprise Services. He’s worked in the IT Industry since 1991, and worked for several companies. He runs the blog virtualizetips to document tips and problems encountered during his projects and reads. A VMware Certified Professional (VCP VI3.5) MCSE on Windows NT – 2000, Cisco CCNA/CCDA. Brian is currently working on upgrading my VCP to vSphere and will be pursuing VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) next.

This post is to help people new to VMware Lab Manager and not for the experts. If you are looking for details on how to use some of the base features in Lab Manager.

You can access the Management Console from the following link. You will see a login screen like the one listed below. Use the user name and password that was entered during the install or if you have setup LDAP/AD integration to login into the console.

http://servername/LabManager/

Now that you have logged into the console you will be greeted with the Welcome screen. This will give you some details about what you have created in VMware Lab Manager over time.

You will notice on the left side of the console there is a Menu in an explorer like structure. This will allow you to easily navigate around the console.

How to create new Virtual Machines

When creating and working with existing virtual machines you will find them located in the Workspace area of Lab Manager. A workspace is the area that hold Configurations which is a method to group virtual machines together. A configuration can have 1 virtual machine or many.

There are many reasons why using separate configurations is beneficial to keeping the environment organized. I would suggest that each application team creates a configuration for their team at minimum, this will allow them to control the settings on their virtual machines. At times you may need to create new configurations for short term projects, this will allow you to dispose of the setup once its completed.

Each separate configuration has some settings that can be applied to it that won’t affect others. You are also able to shut down and undeploy your configuration when not using it. This will then free up the computing resources for use by others.

The first step in creating a new configuration is to click the New Configuration button from the Workspace area. You can see from the image below that we are in the Workspace area from the left menu and the button for New Configuration is at the top.

Step 2 in creating the new Configuration. You will be presented with a screen like the one shown below. There are a few fields that you need to fill out and make choices on.

First is the name field at the top, this is the name of your Configuration only. So it should relate to what or who is going to be using the Virtual Machines within it. The next field is the Description this allows you to expand more with notes on what this configuration is used for.

The next couple of choices are for Deployment and Storage Lease times. These settings set how long the configuration will be around for, there are options from 1 hour to never expires. If you choose a selection other than never here the Lab Manager system will automatically dispose of your configuration when the time runs out. This is a good choice if you know that your need is short term and you do not need to hold onto the Virtual Machines once you are done, there is always the option to extend the time or manually delete them also. This will help to keep the environment clean and prevent wasting resources.

The VM Fencing Policy will be explained in a separate section as it’s an advanced feature.

The section at the bottom is where you are choosing how your virtual machine(s) will be created and what they will be named.

You can see from the image below that you are allowed to add from one to many VM (virtual machines) to your configuration. By default one will be added upon creating the New Configuration, but by click the Add VM button pointed out in the image you can add extra VM’s to the configuration.

The first field is the Source selection, this is where you will choose the operating system of the VM that you are creating. By click the down arrow on the filed you will be presented with the available Operating System templates.

The next field is the Name filed and this will be the Server Name of the VM created. This server name will be reflected in the Console and it will also be applied as the Windows server name.

The Network filed is listing the Lab Manager private network that the VM will be connected to. The IP address mode shows that the VM will be assigned a static IP address from a Pool.

Google has over 2,000 job openings now. You can find a complete list of the jobs here. Google currently employs about 23,000 people worldwide. The openings are in nearly all job categories and in many locations around the world. Developer relations, the group I work in, has many job openings too.

You might want to read, “How to get a job at Google, hiring process and interview questions. Also read “How Google sets goals and measures success”. I recently completed “My first year at Google” and wrote about my experiences. These posts should give you a good feel for what it is like to interview, how you will be measured, and what life is like at Google.

In some ways the Google hiring process is pretty standard, it is the decision process that is different. This video explains the steps and what to expect. All open jobs are listed on Google.com.  Browse for a job that fits you and submit your resume online. Every resume submitted online gets reviewed.

Even with 2,000 job openings there are still many more qualified candidates than there are openings. It is very competitive. So, how do they decide who to accept or hire? Assume that most applicants have great grades, impressive work experience, and great references.

How can you stand out? Do something special. Be a significant contributor to an open source project. Write a blog or be a thought leader on a specific topic. Create a mashup or hack or something cool and useful that uses current technologies. Be a leader, create something, convert your passion into something tangible. Technical people could build something. Designers could mock up something. Business people could start a group, or a small business. Creative people could write something, create a video, or show their passion in some way.

The selection process isn’t a perfect science. Stanford and Harvard accept between 7% and 9% of all applicants, and readily admit there are many more qualified candidates. Google and Facebook hire a significantly smaller percentage. Google receives more than one million resumes every year.

Go for it! Google wants fearless people who will battle against the odds. We want people who will shoot for the stars. One of the first things I learned at Google is “achieving 60% of the impossible is better than 100% of the ordinary”.

Send me an email if you need help with the process. If I know you and something about your work I will submit your resume for you. Google pays a referral bonus to employees for successful hires. So, I am more than happy to help

Don has been in the software business for more than 25 years. He was part of the leadership team of five software start-ups. Forte Software was the first multiplatform object oriented development environment. AltaVista was the first search engine on the web. Napster was the first P2P file sharing network. Bowstreet was the first web services development environment. Groove Networks was the first secure P2P collaboration platform.

Check out Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

On one of the projects that I have been working on lately we have been replacing all of the existing EMC storage with HP Storage. I’m not going to go into which one I think is better or worse. I am just going to cover how PowerPath is able to work with other storage arrays also. So in my search to determine if I would be able to continue to use the existing PowerPath licenses that exist at the client or if they would need to use the base MPIO software that HP provides. To those that have used PowerPath in the past you would probably agree that it is a great MPIO application and has a lot of other features available also.

For system admins it can make things like monitoring the health of your SAN connections and identifying which LUN correlates to the disk that you need expanded so much easier. So for these reasons it would be best for them to continue to use PowerPath. I searched the web for feedback to see what others have been doing and was surprised to see nothing. There was really no feedback out there. I did find some details about using PowerPath/VE with HP arrays but this version is for Hypervisors not Windows servers.

So after some further digging I was able to determine that I could use PowerPath version 5.5 with Windows servers to manage MPIO with HP Storage arrays. It will work with both EVA and XP class storage from HP. There are 32 bit and 64 bit versions available and I was able to test on both Windows Server 2003 and 2008 so far.

The install of PowerPath is pretty straight forward, the only thing that you must do special is to select the custom install option. You can see from the image below that you will have a few options to choose from for 3rd party Array support. I selected both the HP XP and Hitachi support since they will be using both EVA and HP XP’s which are made by Hitachi in the environment. After a reboot and a quick vDisk assignment on the EVA the storage was showing up properly in Windows.

The only part that was left was to get used to how the storage details would be showing up in PowerPath. Now when your using EMC storage the LUN ID with show up in the LUN column and is nice and clear. But when using it with the HP EVA the only way to match up the windows disk to the vDisk on the EVA was to use the Device details listed for the disk within PowerPath. I took a snapshot of the screen below.

You then need to match up the Device details that you found in PowerPath with the vDisk on the EVA that you can see by using the Command View EVA console. You can see that the WW LUN Name for the vDisk matches up with the Device column inside of PowerPath and this will help you match up your vDisks with the Windows disks. This makes disk expansions and assigning disks with different Raid levels to the proper drive letter in Windows much easier.

Brian Suhr is a Senior Virtualization Engineer and Architect working for HP Enterprise Services. He’s worked in the IT Industry since 1991, and worked for several companies. He runs the blog virtualizetips to document tips and problems encountered during his projects and reads. A VMware Certified Professional (VCP VI3.5) MCSE on Windows NT – 2000, Cisco CCNA/CCDA. Brian is currently working on upgrading my VCP to vSphere and will be pursuing VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) next.

Let me start off by saying this is a very long blog post, probably the longest I will ever create. I wanted to showcase the initial setup wizard for those of you new to setting of VMware vCloud Director. Once you have created and installed all of the Hosts, vCenter server, Database, vShield and the vCD cell you then need to setup vCD. There are several very good blog posts by other community members out there that step you through the process of setting up the base infrastructure. I will include some of the links at the end in case you need them.

Jump to:

• Create Provider vDC
• Create Network Pool in vCD
• Create New Organization in vCD
• Create New Organization in vCD – Page 2
• Allocate resources to an Organization
• Add Network to an Organization
• Add Network to an Organization – Page 2
• Create a vCD Catalog

I will be showing you step by step that the vCD setup wizard takes you through. This will show you how to created Virtual Datacenters, Organizations, Networks and Pools, Catalogs and Media. You will begin to get a good base understanding of how vCloud Director works. I will also point out some similarities with Lab Manger 4.0 for those of you that have used LM in the past.

Logging into vCloud Director

Before getting to this initial login screen you will need to supply a password for the admin account and enter the vCloud Serial number. You will not be able to test out vCloud Director in your lab unless you get a trial code or have an NFR license, unless you are lucky enough to have a valid license code to use.

vCloud Director first time setup Wizard

Now that you have logged in you can see below you are presented with the first screen of the vCD setup wizard. This process is broken up into 8 main parts that will step you through setting the bones of the configuration.

Attaching a new vCenter Server to vCD

The first step is to attach to a new or existing VMware vCenter server. This is going to allow vCloud Director to gain access to VMware hosts, networks and resources pools. You will need to supply the vCenter server name or IP address along with log in credentials.

The next step is going to ask for details about connecting to the vShield Manager virtual machine that you imported. This is going to handle all of the firewall and security features in vCloud Director.

The last screen in this stage is displaying the information that you entered before committing it. Make sure to double check since it will be easier to change now than having to go back and change later.

Now, in a previous posting, I mentioned that I would talk more about SSSU, especially in talking about how to export the information and then put it into a human readable format. SSSU can output xml format, but that requires some type of xml parsing tool. I did mention that Microsoft’s Log Parser tool could be used, but really I’m lazy, and it’s a bit cumbersome. And truth be told, I never got it to work just right.

So last night I sat down and did some old fashioned thinking about how I can get the information I need, but easier and with less effort. I started toying with powershell as it’s a good friend in the VMware space. I have to confess though that I have a Mac. Yes, I enjoy monotasking. Nothing wrong with that I then realized (as I sometimes forget) that I had a whole delicious CLI on my mac. This includes great tools like grep and diff! Well and a lot more, but I’ll stick to those for now. (Note that you can get grep and diff for Windows, via either the Windows versions of those tools, or using Cygwin). Fear not win32 folks, you are covered!

Let me take a step back and cover the premise for wanting to gather information from SSSU. As we know, Command View is a web-based interface for communicating with the EVAs. While it does provide lots of information, it is troublesome to navigate around and get that information easily. One off kinds of things, certainly. But pulling in lots of info easily, I think not. One big flaw, in my mind, is that CV talks to the EVAs via the SAN, and not via IP. Why is this a flaw? Well, for instance, SSSU can’t talk directly to the EVAs themselves. Rather, it has to talk to the CV server (which is why it prompts you when you fire it up for a “manager”). This also means you can’t use SSSU to do anything if your CV server has bit the dust. But I digress.

From the arrays, I want to gather information on my vdisks, my controllers, snapshots, disks, and my disk groups. I want to gather some information once, some monthly, and some on a more regular basis.

For the vdisks, I run (via SSSU) this command: LS VDISK FULL > vdisk.txt (This will output the information into a text file in the directory where the sssu.exe is located) Then, I fire up my command line, and grep that sucker for some info:

grep “familyname\|allocatedcapacity\|redundancy\|diskgroupname” textfile > date_vdisk.txt

This output will give me a file with the date that has the information I am specifically looking for

As stated before, I am quite lazy and so I could use (or you could use) awk (another great command line text processor) to generate the output in a better format. But instead, I keep it like this. Note that allocatedcapacity is the vdisk size in GB. Now, since I’m generating these files monthly, I can use the diff command to compare two months and see what has changed (disk grows, adds, deletes, etc).

diff -y date_vdisk1.txt date_vdisk2.txt | grep “familyname\|allocatedcapacity”

Note the | in there. The older date is on the left, and the newer date is on the right. So it’s easy to see which has changed and by how much. Arguably you could make this even easier, but again, lazy. And this works for me, so your mileage may vary.

Since these are simple text files, it’s easy and pain free to keep them around. Overall, I use this information for vdisks to track growth, easy at a glance for what vdisk is what size/raid level, and you can also pull out info to find out what controller has what disks.

This leads me into talking about what information I grab from my controllers. Now, one thing to note: The EVA4400 series only has one listed Controller (in this case Controller 1). This is because of how it is designed: both controllers are in the same housing, sharing a back plane. We have three 8100 series, each having two physically separate controllers, listed as Controller 1 and Controller 2.

First, to find out ALL the info on your controllers, do LS CONTROLLER FULL in SSSU. The output will be big and full of interesting details. One other thing to note: SSSU denotes them as Controllers 1 and 2. Command View denotes them as Controllers A and B. Lame! For what I need, I don’t need to keep controller info like I do vdisk info. I will do an initial grab after an XCS code update to keep handy.

So in my experience with the EVAs, I can say I have come across many challenges in finding good user experience documentation (outside of the normal pdf’s the HP machine churns out) and support. The HP forums have been somewhat helpful, but sifting through them, using their search or the googalizer, are less than user friendly. Good information at times to be had, but still overly difficult.

So it is with that preface that I arrive at discussing the SSSU: HP’s Storage Scripting System Utility. The premise of this utility is to allow command line access to an EVA. The idea is, at least from HP’s perspective, to use it for repetitious activities that would be otherwise tiresome in Command View. Additionally, you can also issue interactive commands like restarting a controller or changing mastership for disks between controllers manually. HP bundles the SSSU installer with Command View’s installer package. It carries the same versioning as Command View (so in my case, 9.1.0).

SSSU seems like a really great idea. I love the command line (being very partial to a bash shell ), but SSSU isn’t a real CLI in that sense. The first round of trouble is in the output: SSSU generates XML based output that a human can’t simply open up and read. This throws out a simple way to grab information that would otherwise take a lot of time via CV. This posting is an overview of SSSU, and I will write a follow up post that goes more into depth on what you can do with the output to make it actually usable in conjunction with Microsoft’s Logparser tool. Sad I know. You can pony up big $ to get actual tools but hey, in tight times, stretching the imagination is better than stretching the wallet. I’ll also put up some of the scripts I use to gather data on disks and such (ex: easy way to track disk size and growth).

At this point, let’s get SSSU fired up and play around a bit. To launch, log into your CV server and run that fancy icon on the desktop. One quick gripe: no way for me to install this on my own laptop to just run and connect with. To get around that, I copy over from the CV install to my local machine the SSSU.exe file. It runs great and it’s just that less than 2 meg file. Upon launching it, you get to login.

You get three parts to a login:

You can login with a domain account without any issue, so you don’t have to create a whole separate user account list. One thing to note is that although you can fire up multiple SSSU windows to one array, you can only execute commands to it one at a time (serial baby!), so when one command is running in one window, your other windows would hang if you tried to execute a command).

After logging in, you are sitting at a default path, so to speak. That being that you have not selected your array.

Hitting? and enter will list off all the commands available. This can also be used to find out what options each command has available.