あまり使いどころないかも知れませんが、
esxtop で、特定の仮想マシンだけの情報をとってみようと思います。

「ちょっと仮想マシンの様子を取得しておきたいが
esxtop でぜんぶとると、ファイルが大きくなりすぎる」
といった場合に使えるかもしれません。

今回は、ESXi に SSH でログインして、/work を作成して作業しています。

※デフォルトでは、ESXiに /work ディレクトリ はありません。

1. まず、現在のワールドグループの一覧を入手します。

ためしに仮想マシン「vm01」 の情報だけとってみます。

ESXiでは、仮想マシンは1つのワールドグループとして見えます。
ワールドは、Linuxなどのプロセスとほぼイコールな単位らしいです。

esxtop で、ファイル（例ではesx.f）にグループの一覧をエクスポート。

/work # esxtop -export-entity exp.f

ファイルの中身は下記のような感じです。

/work # cat exp.f
SchedGroup
1 idle
2 system
2055 sh.3095
8 helper
9 drivers
10 ft
11 vmotion
47 vmkapimod
2101 net-lacp.3118
8284 sshd.6940
8290 sh.6944
2243 sh.3215
2311 sh.3249
279 init.2170
2383 openwsmand.3285
104995 vm02
104997 vm01
100905 sh.65376
105004 vm03
105014 vm04
100951 vpxa.65399
(以下略)

取得したファイルの中から、「SchedGroup」と、
目的の仮想マシンを表すグループID（GID）だけを拾い出します。

だいたいは、下記で拾えるはず。（後で使用するので、vm01.f ファイルとして書き出しています。）

/work # grep -e SchedGroup  -e vm01 -m 2 exp.f > vm01.f

/work # cat vm01.f
SchedGroup
104997 vm01

SchedGroup
104997 vm01←仮想マシン vm01 を表すGID

2. 仮想マシンのGID情報が入ったファイルを指定して、esxtopを実行します。

esxtopをバッチモードで実行。
普通モードで実行しても、今回は 仮想マシン vm01 だけ表示されます。

/work # esxtop -b -d 5 -n 3 -import-entity vm01.f > vm01.log

ちなみに、オプションは...
-b →バッチモードで実行。
-d →指定した秒数間隔で結果表示する。
-n →指定した回数だけ結果表示して終了する。
-import-entity →指定したファイル内に記載したものだけ表示する。

3. 取得したファイルを見てみます。

結果ファイルを、1行目だけ（headで）見てみました。

ESXi 全体のカウンタは出力されますが、
仮想マシン単位のカウンタは vm01 のものだけが取得できていました。

/work # head -n 1 vm01.log | sed 's/,/\n/g'
"(PDH-CSV 4.0) (UTC)(0)"
"\\esxi01.local\Memory\Memory Overcommit (1 Minute Avg)"
"\\esxi01.local\Memory\Memory Overcommit (5 Minute Avg)"
"\\esxi01.local\Memory\Memory Overcommit (15 Minute Avg)"
"\\esxi01.local\Physical Cpu Load\Cpu Load (1 Minute Avg)"
（中略）
"\\esxi01.local\Group Cpu(104997:vm01)\Members"
"\\esxi01.local\Group Cpu(104997:vm01)\% Used"
"\\esxi01.local\Group Cpu(104997:vm01)\% Run"
"\\esxi01.local\Group Cpu(104997:vm01)\% System"
（中略）
"\\esxi01.local\Virtual Disk(vm01)\Commands/sec"
"\\esxi01.local\Virtual Disk(vm01)\Reads/sec"
"\\esxi01.local\Virtual Disk(vm01)\Writes/sec"
"\\esxi01.local\Virtual Disk(vm01)\MBytes Read/sec"
"\\esxi01.local\Virtual Disk(vm01)\MBytes Written/sec"
"\\esxi01.local\Virtual Disk(vm01)\Average MilliSec/Read"
\\esxi01.local\Virtual Disk(vm01)\Average MilliSec/Write

それでもカウンタは140個近くありました。
/work # head -n 1 vm01.log | sed 's/,/\n/g' | wc -l
143
※結果≒カウンタ数です。wcが改行文字を数えているだけだと思うので、実際はちょっと違います。

以上、仮想マシンねらいうちでした。

他にもっと良い方法が いくらでもありそうな気がしますが・・・

Welcome Back... to my second part of creating a Pay-As-You-Go backed Organizational vDC... Isn't funny how you can construct a sentence that makes perfect sense to you, but to the outside world they'd be all WT*!

7.Select a network pool for this Organization vDC

Note: Remember this is a pool that is going to be used soley and exclusively by this "Test/Dev" Organization vDC within the CorpHQ Organization. That's quite different from the Organizational Network that will be created at the end of this wizard, which will be accessible to ALL Organization vDCs. The vApps created in the Test/Dev vDC will backed by network pool using vCD-NI, but the external interface of the vCNS will be backed by one of my "External Networks" which will use VLAN tagging.

Earlier in this series - I created number of different networks pools - VLAN, vCD-NI and VXLAN backed pools. All of these allow the dynamic creation of networks whether it be by ye olde worlde "VLANs", or by the more blisteringly modern methods of vCD-NI and VXLAN. In my mind VLANs are precious resource, not because I value them - but that my physical switch can create so few of them (64 VLANs maximum to be precise). With any resource that's scarce, I'm mindful of allocating them indescriminately. In the case of a test/dev Organization vDC I think this is ideal use case for either vCD-NI or VXLAN based allocations - mainly because I expect a Test/Dev environment to create/destroy many networks in a given period, and they are unlikely to need direct connected configurations. My only issue with this configuration is the size of my vCD-NI pool was tiny in comparison to the default quota of 1000 (in fact all my allocations of network pools are tiny compared to the quotas). The alarm didn't stop me from clicking next, and I assume if I'd left this unaddress I would have allocated all 100 vCD-NI networks to this Organization vDC. The easiest solution was to reduce the quota, and then perhaps reconsider the allocation of vCD-NI backed networks. They dont' "cost" me anything, so why did I make the allocation so low of 100?

8. Configure the Edge Gateway...

When you run through this wizard for the 1st time for an Organization there is no vCNS Edge Gateway (the artist formerly known as vShield Edge) or any 3rd party network services registed to select. The next part of the wizard allows you to indicate whether you would like to deploy an vCNS Edge Gateway, and connect the Organization to an external network. The setting is optional, so you could bomb out of the wizard and create an Organization Network and other allocations seperately if you so wish. I think it makes more sense to persist with the wizard if your setting up an Organization vDC for the first time.

When you enable the option to "Create a new edge gateway" you will see the page refreshes to show additional options, additionally if you tick off any of the "Advanced Options" (say Configure IP setings for example) this adds these additional steps in the wizard on the left-hand side bar. In the configuration your asked to set the "Edge Gateway" name as it will appear in the inventory of both vCD and vCenter. I'm likely to have at least one per Organization, so I used the Organization prefix to enforce some kidn of uniqueness. My first gateway I will used to connect the Organization to the Internet (outbound only) hence the descritpion.

It's possible to have to different sizes of Edge Gateway, the functionality is the same - and you can easily switch after the deployment from compact to full and vice-versa. In fact if I recall rightly, there are actually more than two sizing options in the UI of the vCNS Manager. As this is just a lab environment and a modest load is going to be placed on the Edge Gateway I opted for using the compact addition.

The vCNS Edge Gateway now comes in a high availability mode where you have two appliance which are in a active/passive configuration and mirror of each other. This would be ideal in a production environment, and definitely something I want to experiment with in the future. But for now a single vCNS Edge Gateway is all I really require.

Finally, I selected the options to configure both the IP of the appliance and the range of IP address it will service on the network. I didn't both with setting a rate-limit option as I don't consider this a priority in a lab environment, but again its something I want to go back and look at.

9. Select the External Network that the Edge Gateway will use, and select the Add button

This is relatively trival page in the wizard with one exception (for me at least) which is the option to "Use default gateway for DNS Relay". I still haven't really decided if DNS per-Organization should reside within the Organizational vDCs or where it should be elsewhere. Part of me wants LDAP/DNS to managable within the scope of their own Organizations. That's because in my mind I want the Organization and its Virtual Datacenters to have the same management and functionality as if it was a physical environment. The other side of me thinks this is a bad idea. Tenants shouldn't have to worry about the configuration/management of "infrastructure" systems like LDAP/DNS. Those should be externally provided, with the option of them managing outside of their cloud - for example for adding new users and computers into their environment. Additionally, given those LDAP services are required for them to be authenticated to gain access to vCloud Directory and their Organization - there's something of chicken-and-egg anxiety for me there. If LDAP/DNS works inside their Organization - they could shut it down, and find themselves unable to login to their vCD Organization to power it back on! [Unless, of course there is a local user account for their Organization]. If you don't enable this option here - you cannot use it later on in the wizard when you create an Organization Network. If you do enable it you have the choice of using OR not using later on in the "Create Organization VDC Network", so I enabled it to give me the choice but actually made my primary DNS the servers I have on the external network hosting the main "Corp.com" domain.

10. Configure IP Settings...

The next step is to configure the EXTERNAL interface of the Edge Gateway. This is the NIC that will sit on the "External Network" I've called "The Corporate Network" in vCD which actually points to a portgroup on the Distributed vSwitch called "ExternalCorpNetwork". You have two choices here - to either have vCD set the IP automatically from the pool of IP addresses assigned to the External Network OR to manually assign a IP address from the same pool. On my external network I have a Juniper Firewall, and at some stage I want to allow TCP ports outbound/inbound through it and then on to the Edge Gateway. To do that I'm going to have to use an IP address that doesn't change, so it can be added to the rules on the Juniper. I can see that there will be cases where I might want to dynamically assign an IP from a pool. For example if I was creating a lot of networks in test/dev environment to internal corporate network, but when it comes to internet access for now I want to be bit more controlled in assigning these IP addresses. In my case I selected "Manual" and assigned the IP of 192.168.3.51 to the Edge Gateway from the pool. You'll notice there's no option here to set a subnet mask, default gateway - that's because that was set on the "Externel Network" configuration earlier.

11. Sub-Allocate IP Pools on Edge Gateway...

NOTE: One thing I discovered later was that this IP sub-allocation pool range can actually INCLUDE the Edge Gateway external IP address. In my case the 192.168.3.50 address.

It is required to allocate a bundle of IP address to the Edge Gateway for other processes such as NAT or Load-Balancing, where additional IP address maybe needed. I decided to carve out a block of IP address from 192.168.3.51-192.168.3.57. Lets just unpack that last statement. These IP address are need for other services such as NAT or Load-Balancing - what that means is the IP addressed assigned at the "Configure IP settings" (in my case 192.168.4.1) isn't used for NATing. So merely the act of having an external (192.168.3.51) and an internal address (192.168.4.1) isn't enough to get traffic moving from the vApps on the External Network. As these services are enabled for the first time an IP address will be claimed.

IMPORTANT: So by default the vCNS Edge Gateway passes NO traffic from the vApp to the External Network. There are no NAT rules enabled for that to happen, and there are NO Firewall rules to allow communications outbound. All the vApps can do is speak to each other on the same Organization Network.

12. Create Organization vDC Network...

NOTE: If you read on you might find that actually enabling the "Use Gateway DNS" is a better option!

Note: This is Organization Network that's been created here for the very first time. By selecting the "Share this network with other vDC's in the Organization" it will be available not just to this "Test/Dev" Organization vDC, but ALL Organizational vDCs. Remember "external networks" (in my case called "The Internet" are backed by portgroups on the Distributed vSwitch that are manually created and assigned an VLAN ID before you even create them in vCD. One of the downsides of enabling the option to create a new Edge Gateway is that two quite seperate wizards are affectively being chained together - one creates a network for the Organizational vDC and thothe rcreates a network for the Organization. That's two quite seperate discrete objects within vCloud Director. Now the important thing to remember here is this page is primarily about configuring the options for the "Internal" network - the vApp side of the network, which will speak to the external network via the vCNS Edge Gateway. Essentially, these pages are specifying the parameters that the vCD Edge Gateway appliance will need to allow VMs inside the Organization vDC speak to the wider network.

The next step involves creating an Organizational Network for the first time. Again I used my Organizational name as prefix for the name of the network, and enabled the option to "Share this network with other vDC in the Organization". Without that option available the Organizational Network would be only available to the Organization Virtual Datacenter I'm creating here. I was quite pleased to see this option. It means each vDC could have its own discrete set of networking options only available to it.In this case I set the internal interface of the vCNS to be 172.168.4.1 with a subnet mask of 255.255.250.0, rather than using the 172.168.4.1 interface as the "DNS Gateway", I specify the Primary/Secondary DNS manually together with the DNS Suffix. Looking back at this configuration I think it's a mistake. By which I don't mean its "technicall wrong" but a mistake in that I'm missing out on a good feature. Without the "Use Gateway Address for DNS" option enabled it means every VM in a vApp that recieves an IP address from the Edge Gateway would be configured for the DNS servers (192.168.3.130/192.168.3.131). What if that changes? What if the IP of the DNS altered? Why "hard-code" a IP configuration like this. It could make the vApp less portable in the sense that it could potentially be looking for these DNS servers if it was relocated elsewhere... Fortunately, the option can be re-enabled and the configuration of the vCNS Edge Gateway updated...

If you scroll down beyond the "DNS Suffix" options you will see the option for a "Static IP Pool" [if your working on small screen you may have to scroll if you working on a large screen you might not!]. This is used for the VMs inside the Test/Dev Provider vDC. There's a couple of way of enabling them for IP. We could turn on the vCNS DHCP functionality, we could ask the vApp owners to manually specify the IP address within the Guest Operating system - OR we can create a Static IP Pool. This will give a VM in a vApp an IP address from the pool if the .OVF is configured claim one. This will mean a VM in a vApp would be assigned an IP address of 172.168.4.10 with subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 with its default gateway being 172.168.4.1 and the DNS servers being 192.168.3.130 and 192.168.3.131.

NOTE: Actually I ended-up using the 172.168.5.x range in my deployment. I realised later that 172.168.5.x is used elsewhere on my network - although they aren't visable to each other, I didn't want any overlapping networking ranges.

13. Finally, name the Organization vDC and set a description. You may wish to set this as "disabled" until you are happy with the configuration. For example if you were wanting to use the vCNS Edge Gateways functionality, rather than static pools - you might prefer to disable it until it has been correctly configured.

Some Pay-As-You-Go Thinking:

[This title is meant to be some thinking about PAYG, but actually quite like the idea of PAYG as being type of thinking... Thinking-As-You-Go TAYG]

So.... lots of settings. Where to begin? So here's some thinking. In my experience of running a lab environment you rarely if ever run out of CPU. It's memory every time. It kind of feels "odd" to place controls on CPU. There appears to be two compelling controls in a Pay-As-You-Go model either imposing a memory quota or VM quota. The VM quota seems draconian. Why shouldn't developers be allowed to create as many VMs as they like - they could be making lots of very small ones after all. My worry is those developers creating lots and lots of VMs, and consumming all the memory available in the Provider vDCs, as the expense of other tenants. The other concern I have is wonderful that all these controls are - it's always been my view is the knobs & buttons you press and engage - the hard it becomes to work out the affective control. That means if we set the barriers too high, and stop VMs being created too early because of soft setting - it might be difficult to see how lift that barrier. Finally, although I like the "typical number of vApps" estimatation (as it illustrates well the effect your changes in the PAYG configuration) it might not be a very best representation of how the resources will be consummed in the real world. As the System Admin of the vCD environment, and the creator of the Organization vDC do you really know how many small, medium or large VMs will be created or when?

There's some temptations here which I'm trying to resist. For example, as I have 4 Organizations potententially using the "Silver" vDC - I could take the total resources available in the cluster (48GB), and simply divided - set a memory quota of 12GB to each Organization - in other words it would be like a quota of 1-host per Organization (its four node cluster). A second example would be just think (in my general experience) what the average number of VMs I usually see on a 12GB host before I see memory alarms - that's usually about 8-9 VMs sat there doing nothing - so I could limit the number of VMs to 10 per "Test/Dev" Organization. The trouble with both of these approaches is that assumes each Organization will create/consume about the same about of Test/Dev VMs and they will be roughly the same size. I don't think I can guarantee either of these assumptions. What I do know is that could regarded as an inefficent use of my resources, and I'm not really pushing the "over-commitment envelope" as much I could. So I'm going to opt for memory quota that is more intune with that way of thinking. The PAYG model added extra 30GB to its calculations - allowing almost the double the over-commit against memory available in the cluster. So I'm going to use that as my guide. I'm going to give memory quota to each Test/Dev Organizational Virtual Datacenter - 20GB each.

Finally, there's another thing I've been thinking and its about the new Organization wizard, and enabling the vCNS Edge Gateway in the same workflow. It does make that wizard a very long one - I'm wondering if my life and this blogpost would have been simplier if I'd just created the Organizational vDC first, and then configured the network second. Splitting the process up into two discrete phases. I have a feeling that this ability to both create an Organization vDC and configure its networking at the same time, was added in vCD 5.1. That's because my lab guide instructions for 1.5 make no mention of it. I guess for more experienced users this makes sense for them, but for noobs like me its a bit overwelming. The other thing that concerns me is the placement of the first vCNS Edge Gateway to an Organization. If like me you create a "Test/Dev" vDC first - and present to it your Silver Provider vDC and just Silver/Bronze storage - the Edge Gateway for the Organization is placed there as well. What if I wanted this appliance to be on the Gold Provider vDC and on Platinum Storage. The way to do that would be to handle the creation of the Organization Networking as seperate process. I'd be happy for my vApp Network based Edge Gateway to reside in the SAME cluster as the vApps (that makes sense to me), but with the Organizational based vCNS which is used by both the Gold and Silver Provider vDC it feels like I should be locate it where I like...

In this Blog Post I will describe how I have configured VXLAN's over a Multicast enabled Layer 3 network. I will show the router configs and the associated multicast routes created and the host VXLAN mappings.

This lab is a physical lab rather than a virtual one on VMware Workstation. I hope to cover how to do this on a virtual lab in a later Blog Post. The lab is based on two hosts each with 2 Nics, a small PC for vCenter, vSphere Client and shared storage. The vShield Manager "VSM" is deployed onto the one of the two ESXi hosts. The lab is based on vSphere 5.1 and vCNS 5.1.

The network is based on two Cisco routers and a Switch for vSphere PC as shown in the diagram below:

On the network I have deployed PIM Sparse-Mode "PIM-SM" with R1 as the rendezvous point for both routers R1 and R2. I have used PIM-SM as apposed to sparse-dense mode which seems to be the recommendation. My reasons for this is that I have more experience of PIM-SM so this seems a good starting point for me to learn VMwares implementation of VXLAN.

As the previous blog I will not be deploying a VXLAN gateway just yet and will be concentrating on just VXLAN itself. The VSM and VXLAN preparation is identical to my previous 2 part Blog Post "Simple VXLAN lab on Workstation viewing traffic with Wireshark".

The only difference here is that each ESXi hosts vmk1 interface is now in a different layer 3 and layer 2 segment.

Host ESXi1 VXLAN interface vmk1 is in subnet 192.168.150.0/24

Host ESXi2 VXLAN interface vmk1 is in subnet 192.168.136.0/24

Each physical router acts as a DHCP server for each ESXi host.

Preparation for VXLAN is now as per below:

Below are the configs I used for routers R1 and R2, a simple network based on two routers in a single PIM-SM domain both running OSPF in a single area 0.

Router "R1" config:

!
hostname R1
!
ip multicast-routing
!
interface Loopback0
description PIM RP
ip address 172.16.1.1 255.255.255.255
ip pim sparse-mode
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
description Link to Host esxi1
ip address 192.168.150.254 255.255.255.0
no ip proxy-arp
ip pim sparse-mode
duplex auto
speed auto
!
interface FastEthernet0/1
description Link to R2-Fa0-1
ip address 10.1.0.1 255.255.0.0
ip pim sparse-mode
duplex auto
speed auto
!
router ospf 1
log-adjacency-changes
passive-interface FastEthernet0/0
network 10.0.0.0 0.255.255.255 area 0
network 172.16.1.1 0.0.0.0 area 0
network 192.168.0.0 0.0.255.255 area 0
!
ip pim rp-address 172.16.1.1
!
ip access-list standard VXLAN-1-BOUNDARY
deny   224.1.1.50
permit 224.0.0.0 15.255.255.255
!

Router "R2" config:

!
hostname R2
!
ip multicast-routing
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
description Link to Host esxi2
ip address 192.168.136.254 255.255.255.0
no ip proxy-arp
ip pim sparse-mode
duplex auto
speed auto
!
interface FastEthernet0/1
description Link to R1-Fa0-1
ip address 10.1.0.2 255.255.0.0
ip pim sparse-mode
duplex auto
speed auto
!
interface FastEthernet1/0
ip address 10.3.0.1 255.255.0.0
ip pim sparse-mode
duplex auto
speed auto
!
router ospf 1
log-adjacency-changes
passive-interface FastEthernet0/0
network 10.0.0.0 0.255.255.255 area 0
network 172.16.1.1 0.0.0.0 area 0
network 192.168.0.0 0.0.255.255 area 0
!
ip pim rp-address 172.16.1.1
!
ip access-list standard VXLAN-1-BOUNDARY
deny   224.1.1.50
permit 224.0.0.0 15.255.255.255
!

As in the previous lab I have two OpenBSD VMs deployed, VM01 on host ESXi1 and VM02 on host ESXi2. I have then created a single VXLAN named vxlan-01 with a VNI of 5000 using the multicast group 224.1.1.50.

VM's VM01 and VM02 are in subnet 172.16.0.0/24, VM01 with the IP 172.16.0.2 and VM02 with the IP 172.16.0.3.

With the VM's deployed and their vNics a member of vxlan-01 as expected there are no hosts joined to the multicast group 224.1.1.50 and there are no active multicast sources for the group 224.1.1.50.

Now we will power on both VM's VM01 and VM02. As soon as the VM's are powered on even before the guest OS of the VM's has booted up each host now joins the multicast group 224.1.1.50 through IGMP version 2.

We now have multicast routes in place for the two hosts that have joined the multicast group 224.1.1.50.

We can also see the IGMP membership report for group 224.1.1.50 on each router.

At this point as no packets such as broadcast, unknown unicast or ARP have been send from VM's VM01 and VM02 and therefore nothing has had to be encapsulated in the multicast group 224.1.1.50 by either host ESXi1 or ESXi2 so no multicast sources for group 224.1.1.50 are registered with the rendezvous point.

Now a ping session is started from VM01 on Host ESXi1 to VM02 on host ESX2. At this point host ESXi01 encapsulated the ARP request packet into a multicast packet and transmits it on the group 224.1.1.50 with a VXLAN header for VNI 5000. The router R1 will register the source 192.168.150.128 for the group 224.1.1.50 with the rendezvous point. The host ESXi2 will receive the Multicast packet for group 224.1.1.50 and VNI 5000, decapsulates it and send onto the recipient VM whilst adding the source VM Mac address, host and VXLAN mapping into its VXLAN mapping table. Router R2 will then send a source specific join towards the host ESXi1 for the group 224.1.1.50 (192.168.150.137,224.1.1.50). When the router R1 is recieving duplicate packets one from Shared tree and one from the now formed shortest-path-tree, the router R2 will switch over to the shortest-path-tree.

We now have the below multicast routes in place showing host ESXi1 as a source for group 224.1.1.50.

Only the original ARP request is passed over multicast the rest of the ICMP session is passed over Unicast between the host's encapsulated in a VXLAN packet for VNI 5000.

On the previous Blog Post I put up on VXLAN, the hosts VXLAN mapping table had an outer MAC that matched the recipient hosts vmk1 MAC address.

In this use case the outer MAC now has the outer MAC of the 1st hop router i.e. R1 fa0/0 or R2 fa0/0 as shown below, I presume this MAC address is learned when a host receives a VXLAN frame from another host as the source MAC address will be that of the egress router and alleviates the need for proxy-arp on the routers or a separate kernel default route for the VXLAN network.

Anyway, this is a short Blog Post just to hopefully describe basically how VXLAN can be used over a Layer 3 multicast enabled network.

In a future Blog Post I will look at the VXLAN gateway "vCNS Edge" and how it can be used to connect from on VXLAN to another or from the "real world" into a VXLAN. I will also cover NAT and firewall services on the vCNS Edge and how you can use the Edge CLI to aid fault finding.

The above is based on my understanding of both PIM-SM and VXLAN so may well be wrong, then again may hopefully be right

Thanks for reading.

Kevin Barrass

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From the editors Virtual Desk
Hi Everyone, I had such an awesome week last week. Firstly I hosted the 4^th annual TAM Day in Brisbane for all of our TAM customers in our region. This was an entire day of awesome technical presentations, lots of food and cold drinks and of course plenty of coffee and chocolates and sweets to keep everyone happy. I had such a good day and judging by the results of the feedback form so did everyone else. I love hosting this every year and plan on doing this as long as I am allowed to.

I then flew to Sydney for our annual vForum which I think was a monumental success. Spending time with our customers in this setting makes me proud of our company and how we respect and value our customers. This is a free event with a paid area. Firstly the free event is amazing, there are loads of sessions, access to the labs and meals and other refreshments provided for 2 days, all of this is free, wow. Then there is the paid tier which is the All Access Pass (AAP). This is a great product and provides access to 3 additional session tracks specifically for our AAP delegates as well as a lounge area with wifi, coffee and food all day.

I also presented at vForum. I try and present at all of our conferences and at vForum it is my opportunity to present on the TAM program. This is a session that I am very passionate about and I hope that the participants enjoyed.

Finally after a hectic week I spent Friday in Sydney doing my VCAP-DCD exam. I will write some more on this but suffce to say that I passed which was such a relief. I am hoping to do a few other exams over the next few months as I am very keen to certify my skills and I will be encouraging my customers to do the same and possible study together.

Well I hope that your past 2 weeks have been as exciting and productive as mine. Have a wonderful week and I will chat to you again next week.

Enjoy this weeks newsletter which is a bumper after no newsletter last week.

Best Wishes
Neil Isserow (Newsletter Editor)
Queensland Technical Account Manager
Newsletter Archive: communities.vmware.com/blogs/vmwaretam

HOME : #HOT-NEWS
-       VMware Hands On Labs
-       VMware ThinApp Blog: Windows 8 Support with VMware ThinApp 4.7.3

HOME : #PARTNER
New Validated ROBO Solution for EUC that Accelerates Deployments and Helps you Sell More
At VMworld EMEA, VMware launched a new fully tested and validated Branch Office Desktop solution that delivers the efficiencies and cost savings of centralization, but doesn’t assume that every desktop image must be centralized. It combines hosted virtual desktops, with image management for physical and virtual endpoints located in the branch. By supporting a spectrum of requirements through an adaptable solution that combines both approaches, we ensure the Branch-Office Desktop can be right-sized to meet the specific needs of individual branch locations and workers.

Transform Your Business to Capture a Greater Share of Customers’ IT Budget
Are you ready for your customers’ move from on-premise infrastructure towards cloud-based services? More and more, customers are seeking to move infrastructure capabilities such as email management, web traffic management and VOIP to cloud or managed services.

Partner Exchange 2013 Registration is Now Open
The cloud era offers your customers operational efficiencies and cost savings while creating new business opportunities for you. Be one of the first to hear how VMware will help you grow your cloud business by attending Partner Exchange (PEX).

Tools to Master the Software-Defined Datacenter
Power of Partnership 20/11/12 3:59 AM The VMware Partner Network Team Uncategorized
Among the many themes emerging from recent VMworld and vForum conferences, one in particular resonates: the Software-Defined Datacenter defines the path forward for IT.

HOME : #FEATURED-ARTICLE
Virtual Reality: Flawed Logic Behind Microsoft’s Virtualization and Private Cloud Cost Comparisons
Microsoft has published a blog article claiming that VMware’s Cost-Per-Application Calculatoradmits VMware’s costs are higher.
VMware’s Cost-Per-Application calculator is designed to rebut Microsoft claims that Hyper-V is five to ten times cheaper. It shows that the acquisition cost with even VMware’s highest edition – vSphere Enterprise Plus is at parity with Microsoft and actually beats Microsoft for most configurations. For example, the blog shows a comparison result from the VMware calculator using servers that have 64GB RAM. A comparison using servers with 128GB RAM, the more common configuration, shows that the total cost with VMware is at parity with Microsoft.
 
HOME : #SECURITY-ADVISORIES
November 15, 2012 VMSA-2012-0016
VMSA-2012-0016
VMware security updates for vSphere API and ESX Service Console
[more]

November 08, 2012 VMSA-2012-0015

VMSA-2012-0015

VMware Hosted Products and OVF Tool address security issues

[more]

HOME

: #PATCH-NOTIFICATION

VMware vCenter 4.0 Update 4a Patch is available for download at:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/4_0. 

HOME

: #PRESS-RELEASES

·       November 15, 2012

Hitachi and VMware Expand Strategic Partnership

November 07, 2012

Socialcast® By VMware Named A Leader In IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Social Software

HOME :

#TWEETS

(@VMWARETAM)

VMware TAM Program‏@VMwareTAM

vForum2012 in Sydney is done, what an awesome event, our customers are amazing and spending time talking to them was a highlight #vForum2012

VMware TAM Program‏@VMwareTAM

TAM Day 2012 in Queensland was awesome, pictures coming soon.

Mike Laverick‏@Mike_Laverick

mmm, looking at my posts on vCloud Director. Am I writing a book thru the medium of blog???

HOME

: #TRAINING-SCHEDULE

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: #WEBCASTS

VMworld 2012 End-User Computing Announcement Technical Reviews

November 28th 2012 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time (GMT -08:00, San Francisco)

Building a Compliant, Trusted Cloud in Healthcare

November 29th 2012 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time (GMT -08:00, San Francisco)

HOME

: #TAM

Introducing the VMware vCenter Support Assistant Beta

VMware TAM Program Blog

19/09/12 6:49 AM Ryan Johnson Announcements Support

Sign-up and request access to the VMware vCenter Support Assistant beta program.

OVERVIEW

The VMware vCenter Support Assistant streamlines access and saves you time and effort by integrating the creation of VMware Technical Support Requests and the attachment of support diagnostic information within a single application.

HOME

: #TV

VMwareTV: Microsoft System Center falls short for managing VMware vSphere

VMware View Agent Direct-Connection Plugin Explained

VMware vFabric Blog: Big, Fast Data Opportunities in Mobile Applications

Big, Fast Data Opportunities in Mobile Applications

VMwareTV: VMware and the Software-Defined Datacenter

VMwareTV: VMware vFabric RabbitMQ Simulator

HOME

: #VFABRIC

Why Hyperic is Going to Support PostgreSQL Only As a Backend Database

The

next release of Hyperic is coming up soon and the biggest change is to the backend. In the next release, we will only support one database, namely

PostgreSQL. Those of you who have been with Hyperic for a while as long as I have may be surprised considering our history with PostgreSQL, but, as you read though this blog, it will start to make sense.

3 Signs Your Relational Database Must Go

Application and operations teams sometimes reach a point where they must upgrade the database. Whether it’s due to data growth, lack of throughput, too much downtime, the need to share data globally, adding ETLs, or otherwise, it’s never a small project. Since these projects are expensive, any recommendation requires a solid justification.  This article a) characterizes 3 signs where traditional databases hit a wall, b) explains how

vFabric SQLFire provides an advantage over traditional databases in each case, and c) should help you make a case for moving towards an

in-memory, distributed data grid based on SQL.

Why is vFabric on the CIO Agenda? Trends and Economics

So, why is vFabric on the CIO Agenda? In short, technology trends and basic economics.

In this article, we outline, provide key highlights, share the slides, and link to an on-demand, CIO.com webinar titled, “

Your business is now a software business. Now what?” In the recording, Tom Schmidt, Managing Editor at CIO.com, targets several questions to Al Sargent, Group Manager, VMware Cloud and Application Services, about how vFabric fits into the CIO agenda.

Cloud Diaries: Financial Services Company Saves 30-50% Capex & Automates 3000+ VM Deployment

Deploying an application automatically to over 1000 blades with 3000 to 5000 virtual machines is a big deal, particularly when a failed system can stop millions in daily revenue as is the case with large financial services company.

Application Director Community is Open & Growing

With the announcement at VMworld that

vFabric Application Director is now part of VMware’s vCloud Suite, the popularity of the product and usage among VMware users has grown significantly. In order to best support a group of diverse users creating cloud applications that can run on any cloud, VMware has created

a new community for Application Director users.

New Hyperic 5.0 Release Further Embeds Web Infrastructure Monitoring in VMware’s vFabric

It’s been 4 years and one week since we’ve changed the first number in the application version number for

vFabric Hyperic and the open source version,

Hyperic HQ.  In that time,

a lot has happened, including being

acquired by VMware. This latest release, marks the culmination of 4 years of integrating Hyperic into VMware’s processes and product lines, and establishes it as a fully integrated part of VMware’s vFabric cloud application platform.

Cloud Diaries: Turning 13 Datacenters into 6? How vFabric Application Director Helps

Those three words often mean a lot of things – a lot of work, a lot of change, a lot of cost savings, a lot of leadership, and a lot of coordination.  Of course, the payoff of doing it right can also be outstanding.

Preserving Cloud Application Portability – Introducing Cloud Foundry Core

The Cloud Foundry team is happy to announce Cloud Foundry Core  -  a program designed to preserve cloud application portability.

In the cloud computing world, preserving a choice of clouds is critical. The risks of being locked into a single cloud are substantial. Pricing, reliability, geographic location and compliance can all vary between clouds. Business requirements will evolve over time, necessitating the ability to move between clouds, whether public to private, private to public or between public cloud providers.

HOME

: #VCLOUD

How to Configure a Load Balancer Using vCloud Networking and Security Edge Device (vShield)

This is a follow on post from my previous article titled

How to deploy a vCloud Networking and Security Edge device. This post will show you the steps required to configure the Edge device to act as a Load Balancer. This is particularly useful if you are deploying multiple vCloud Director cells.

Another VMware Cloud: eMeter, a Siemens Business, Runs Its Hybrid Cloud on VMware

According to Bryan Bond, Senior Systems Administrator at eMeter, a Siemens Business,

“The biggest thing cloud has done for us is give us the elasticity that we did not have before.”Through the company’s VMware-based hybrid cloud deployment, eMeter can now easily spin up or down data center services in multiple countries, based on business demand and need.

VMware and EMC Awarded “Best Use of HPC in Financial Services” for NYSE Technologies “Community Cloud”

We are happy to announce VMware, in collaboration with EMC and Intel, has received the HPCwire Editor’s Choice Award for “Best Use of High-Performance Computing (HPC) in Financial Services.” The award was given based on VMware’s contribution to NYSE Euronext’s Capital Markets Community Platform, an infrastructure-as-a-service that offers a secure, cost-effective environment for hosting industry-specific applications and disaster recovery strategies.

Does Hybrid Cloud Work? Recap of 11/15 Webinar With Bluelock

Last week, I co-hosted “

Hybrid Cloud: 5 Stories of Success with VMware-Based Hybrid Clouds” with Bryan Bond, Senior Systems Administrator at eMeter, a Siemens Business. We kicked off the discussion by asking the question, “Why hybrid cloud?” This is a question many organizations are asking themselves today as they evaluate the best cloud solution for their business.

HOME

: #SECURITY

The Three Step Approach to Vulnerability Management

I spend the majority of my time researching and talking about current threats and vulnerabilities and their subsequent countermeasures.  There are many essential components of an  IT policy for these and most people have a good handle on two of the three most important components.

First and foremost, an effective patch management process needs to be implemented in every organization.  As  non-Microsoft products are increasingly created and used by organizations, patching is not simply a Microsoft issue anymore.  Patching is widely considered a pro-active approach to vulnerability management.  An effective patch management process will effectively plug holes in vulnerabilities before they are exploited.  Most companies have had an effective process around operating system patching (Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Unix/Linux) and now are starting to focus on application patching that may not be a part of the major software vendors commonly used today.

HOME

: #EUC

Pre-Defined and Certified Solutions with Cisco UCS Servers, NexentaVSA and VMware View

Desktop virtualization solutions are gaining traction with small and mid-sized organizations. But many of these IT organizations are extremely lean, and don’t have additional resources to dedicate to VDI deployment, systems integration and SAN management.  In order to help simplify VDI rollouts,  Cisco, VMware, and Nexenta have teamed up to develop a set of integrated solutions that are also fully validated under the VMware Rapid Desktop Program.

Solved! VMFS File Locking in VMware View 5.1 – All You Wanted to Know

Ever wonder why VMware View would support more than eight hosts in an ESX cluster?

Wonder no more. VMware View 5.1 now supports up to 32 hosts in an ESX cluster!  That is provided a NFS data store is specified for linked clone replica creation.   Since more than eight hosts can now be used in an ESX cluster, VMware View 5.1 makes desktop consolidation even more efficient than ever before.

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: #VSPHERE

Using Storage Profiles with vCloud Director

As a provider of public cloud services, it is very desirable to establish multiple tiers of service that can be delivered to customers.  This helps in the establishment of pricing models and extends choices to the customers for performance.  Private cloud administrators have the same need, though for a slightly different reason.  Instead of using service tiers to establish a payment model, private cloud admins use service tiers to more effectively allocate resources to the organizations within the enterprise.

Auto Deploy Host Booting From Wrong Image Profile

A common Auto Deploy issue I come across is:  “I just added a new image profile and updated the rules on the Auto Deploy server, but when I reboot my vSphere hosts they still boot from the old image”.

vCloud Suite – VSA 5.1 Cluster Service Consideration & Successful Deployment Series – Part 2

The second installment of the series is based around a topic for which I’ve received a few questions about lately. The installation of VSA Cluster Service onto an operating system platform other than Windows. As previously mentioned in part one of this series, the VSA Cluster Services is supported on two different Linux distribution which are RHEL and SLES.

What is Software Defined Storage? A VMware TMM Perspective

I’m posting this from a train which is currently hurtling its way across the middle of Ireland. I’m on my way to meet our friends at NetApp, whose Insight conference takes place in Dublin this week. We’ll be catching up later to talk about many of the storage previews and visions announced at VMworld 2012. Most of you will know by now that the vast majority of my posts are technical in nature. In this post I will be taking a slightly different slant, and try to explain one of the new concepts VMware has around storage. Some of you who have been following the announcements at VMworld will have heard the references to software defined datacenter. An integral part of this vision is software defined storage. So what exactly is that? I wanted to use this post to share some of what we at VMware envision to be software defined storage.

VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP) Evaluation Videos

VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP) was introduced with vSphere 5.1. VDP is ideally suited to protect small environments with enterprise-class backup and de-duplication technology. Each VDP virtual appliance scales up to 2TB of de-duplicated storage or 100 protected VMs and leverages EMC Avamar’s variable-length de-duplication algorithm to deliver de-duplication rates as high as 99%.

Auto Deploy Adding Host to vCenter Using IP

I’ve recently had several people report that Auto Deploy is adding new hosts to their vCenter inventory using the IP address and not the fully qualified hostname.

This happens if you don’t have reverse DNS look up configured for your vSphere hosts.  When Auto Deploy adds a new host to the vCenter inventory it does a reverse DNS lookup on the management IP to determine the host’s Fully Qualified Hostname (FQHN).  If the look up succeeds the host gets added using the FQHN, it it fails the host gets added using the management IP.

Setting up vCloud Networking and Security 5.1 Edge Firewall

VMware vCloud Networking and Security Edge is part of the vCloud Networking and Security solution and provides network edge security and gateway services such as DHCP, VPN, NAT, Firewall and Load Balancing. In an earlier post

here, I described how to deploy SNAT and DNAT using Edge and briefly touched upon the firewall capabilities. In this blog, I will go through firewall capabilities of Edge in detail.

vCloud Suite – VSA 5.1 Remote Office/Brach Office Consideration & Successful Deployment Series – Part 3

The third installment of this blog series is based on the vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 and the support of remote office/branch office (ROBO) use case. With the release of VSA 5.1 VMware introduced the support and capability for the vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) to centrally manage implementation across Remote Office/Brach Office (ROBO). This a compelling solution for customers that are required to manage, operate, and maintain ROBO type of environments. Some of the core benefits provided by the VSA are based around the most essential requirements for any business:

vSphere 5.1 – VDS New Features – BPDU Filter

As you might know by now, with the release of vSphere 5.1, VMware has enhanced vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) operationally as well as functionally. I talked about the new features briefly in the

what’s new paper and also posted

evaluation videos on some of the key features. In the next couple of weeks, I am planning to post more technical details about some of these new features. Since there were lots of questions around the new BPDU filter feature, I thought I will address that in this post.

HOME

: #LABS

labs.vmware.com

ThinApp Factory

The ThinApp Factory is a virtual appliance that brings centralized administration and automation to the process of creating virtualized Windows applications with VMware ThinApp technology.

HOME

: #OFFICIAL-BLOGS

Virtualize Business Critical Applications Blog: Update on Virtualizing Java

Whether a custom Java application or third-party vendor application, all virtualize relatively easily. Often our customers notice improvements in performance and scalability when moving to a virtualized platform. Java application clusters are known to contain many instances that require increased managment when on a physical infrastructure. Many of our customers look for consolidation opportunities while improving performance and scalability. The prime reason for virtualizing Java applications these days is the ability to reduce the JVM instance sprawl that many administrators dread—and have to consolidate through virtualization in order to keep the scale manageable and feasible. Many of our customers have virtualized IBM WebSphere, Oracle WebLogic, JBoss, and Tomcat. In the last three years, virtualization of Java applications has become mainstream, as seen with many of our customer accounts.

VMware Hands On Labs Blog: Taking the Hands on Labs Online Portal for a Test Drive……..

We are very excited about bringing online our Hands on Labs Portal and wanted to give our early users a quick tour and some helpful tips to make your experience much easier and most of all fun for you….

A little bit about the Hands on Lab Portal…

Virtualize Business Critical Applications Blog: Update on Virtualizing Sharepoint

Because SharePoint encourages rapid growth and “viral” proliferation, user goals may conflict with the ability of the IT staff to deliver the desired services when needed within budgetary and manpower constraints. Flexibility is extremely valuable during this early period. If rapid growth and evolution can be supported at realistic costs, SharePoint can become an important tool to rapidly increase everyday productivity. vSphere facilitates this capability, allowing organizations to leverage the benefits of SharePoint on a pay-as-you-go basis. Because high availability features are inherent to the vSphere platform, these can be leveraged on demand. By virtualizing SharePoint, the common problems of deploying a complex, high-growth IT service are alleviated, allowing resources to be spent on maximizing the value of the tool in routine business practice.

VMware ThinApp Blog: Windows 8 Support with VMware ThinApp 4.7.3

On behalf of VMware, I’d like to announce that we have released version 4.7.3 of VMware ThinApp.  The big headline for this release is enabling ThinApp packages to run across the broadest spectrum of operating systems from Windows XP to the recently released Windows 8.  We’ve also updated the

ThinApp Factory Fling to include the 4.7.3 runtime so that you can automagically package with the most current ThinApp version. Lastly, the ThinApp SDK has been rev’d to keep up with those of you creating some integrated offerings or just streamlining the registration of ThinApp packages. (see other blog entries about how to use the SDK)

Virtualize Business Critical Applications Blog: SAP HANA on VMware vSphere

SAP announced today that VMware vSphere is now supported and is the preferred way to virtualize SAP’s high performance HANA database.  This is great news for customers of both VMware and SAP and opens new options for deployment and management of HANA.  This new announcement follows the 2011 announcement by SAP and VMware  that virtualization is a best practice for running SAP and that VMware is the preferred virtualization partner to deploy SAP applications for x86.  It demonstrates the strong partnership between the companies and their desire to offer customers compelling solutions by supporting the combination of their leading edge software.

Office of the CTO Blogs: Consistent Auditing in the Cloud Era

With the growth of cloud computing and the increase of customers deploying workloads in hybrid clouds, having the ability to audit information in a standard way across multiple cloud platforms has come to the forefront. The good news is that a lot of work has already been done in this area. The DMTF addressed this need with a new initiative

launched last year that looks at the ability to create open standards to federate and expose auditing data for cloud consumers. While it’s still early, I expect that over time this direction will give cloud consumers more confidence that their data is safe and that they’re getting what they paid for.

Virtualize Business Critical Applications Blog: Update on Virtualizing SQL

SQL is one of the most widely deployed database platforms in the world, with many organizations having dozens or even hundreds of instances deployed in their environments. In SQL Server 2012, vMotion of SQL workloads is unlimited with Software Assurance (SA) and prohibited without SA (i.e. customer must license the origin and target host to accommodate the vMotion). In SQL 2008, vMotion of SQL workloads is unlimited with SA and limited to once every 90 days without SA. This limitation is a Microsoft licensing limitation, not a technical limitation.

Virtualize Business Critical Applications Blog: Update on Virtualizing Exchange

Email has become one of the most critical applications in an organization’s IT infrastructure. Organizations increasingly rely on messaging tools for individual and organizational effectiveness. As a result, messaging administrators face a constant challenge as they continually seek to manage the conflicting demands of availability, agility, and cost.

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: #EXTERNAL-BLOGS

Dell EqualLogic MasterClass 2012 – Part 1

This is the first of three posts covering the Dell EqualLogic MasterClass that I recently attended. This was a free training event and, while I haven’t deployed or used EQL gear since 2009, I thought it would be worthwhile going along to refresh my memory and see what’s new.

#vBrownBag Follow-Up VCP5-IaaS Objective 3

On the 6th of November 2012 Larus Hjartarson presented on Objective 3 of the VCP5-IaaS blueprint for the EMEA vBrownbag

A Daemon's VIB - Part 2 (Building a software package for VMware ESXi)

Part 2: Service configuration and startup This is the second part of the "Daemon's VIB" series about building a software package for ESXi, using the example of the ProFTPD Offline Bundle that I recently released. In the first part I explained how to get (or create yourself) suitable binaries for ESXi. In this part I will focus on what is necessary    a) to make the service start up automatically

Want to do some VMware Hands-on Labs but don’t have the kit?

Those who have visited VMworld and done a couple of labs know how awesome these are. Recently VMware

announced that the VMware Hands-On Labs (HoL) would be made available online. You had the option to

register for the beta and last week they announced the

public beta was opened! On twitter some early reports are already popping up and judging by the comments people are loving it.

vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive only $17.95, limited time!

Frank and I decided to put the

vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive (paper copy) up for sale for only $ 17.95. This is a

limited time offer (21st of December), so if you want to get yourself, your friend-husband-father-kids or even grandmother a nice present be quick.

VMware vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager – How to install in a lab

Managing several hypervisors through a single pane of glass, that’s something that quite expected today, and it seems that VMware has reacted by publishing new plugin for VMware vSphere 5.1 called

VMware vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager Plugin (MHM). This plugin can get installed on the new vSphere Windows client only.

Free Elearning Course - VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1 Fundamentals

The SRM Essentials free elearning (self-paced, 3 Hours) training course equips experienced VMware vSphere administrators with the knowledge to install, configure, and manage VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 5.1. This elearning also equips vSphere administrators with the knowledge to assist in disaster planning and test disaster recovery plans with SRM. This course introduces different storage replication options and focuses on vSphere Replication.

The enterprise journey to the vCloud

There are many interesting articles about building a Cloud platform using

vCloud director, creating network pools, preparing hosts and ensuring your allocation settings are correct. All good stuff for vAdmins.

PCoIP Bandwidth Calculator and Settings Guideline

Teradici’s PCoIP display protocol provides real-time delivery with high fidelity desktop experience for VMware View virtual desktops. To ensure a responsive desktop, the PCoIP protocol must be deployed across a properly architected virtual desktop network infrastructure that meets bandwidth, QoS, latency, jitter, and packet loss requirements.

VMware Innovate magazine edition available for download!

Internally at VMware we have this cool magazine called “Innovate”. I am part of the team which is responsible for VMware Innovate. I noticed this tweet from Julia Austin and figured I would share it with all of you. This specific edition is about RADIO 2012, which is a VMware R&D innovation offsite. (So looking forward to RADIO 2013!)

VMware SRM SSL Certificate Problems After Applying Microsoft Security Patch

Microsoft recently issued a security advisory and a patch that blocks any certificates with a key length less than 1024 bits. This has impacted a wide variety of systems including VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.0 and below. This article will provide you a way to quickly regenerate the self-signed SRM certificates.

Oversubscribtion of resources in VMware vSphere – any best practices? Yes

Best Practices for Oversubscribing of CPU, Memory and Storage in VMware vSphere environments.

New document which explains all about oversubscribtion. When managing VMware vSphere environments, you can easily oversubscribe memory, CPU or disk resources. But meaning that is easy to do does not mean that it’s the best for your infrastructure.

vCenter Server 5.1 Required Ports

If you’re setting up an environment where you have to deal with firewalling and lots of security, it might be useful to have all the necessary ports that are required for vCenter server 5.1 listed somewhere.

At first there will be all the required ports for vCenter server running on Windows system, and then bellow there will be required ports for vCenter server applicance 5.x as well. I hope you will find it useful.

Engineers Unplugged: Be Kind to Your Protocol

During VMworld Barcelona Amy Lewis (@CommsNinja) from Cisco asked me and Chuck Hirstius (@remexus) to talk during few minutes about any subject. Here is our pitch on PCoIP deployment.

Getting Started with vSphere Web Client Programming - Setting up your development environment

This video is the first in a 3-part video series entitled "Getting Started with vSphere Web Client Programming" which will provide some insights as well as some deep-dive training and step-by-step demonstrations and examples of how you can setup a platform for developing your own solutions for the vSphere Web Client.

HOME

: #VMUG

http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vmug

The VMware User Group is an independent, global, customer-led organization, which maximizes members’ use of VMware and partner solutions through knowledge sharing, training, collaboration, and events.

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: #EDUCATION

Socialized content & learning

My daughter recently completed her first school project. Images, text, animation & video, all referenced on-line and compiled into a slide-show, and handed to the teacher on a USB key. Compared to my recollection of doing school projects, which involved a large piece of card, a stack of felt tipped pens, rulers, glue, scissors, and an awful lot of…

Free Book Excerpt: “Workflow-Fu” with VMware vCenter Orchestrator

Here’s another great book excerpt from our friends at VMware Press. This time we’re sampling

Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator by Cody Bunch.

FREE VMware View Instructional Videos

FREE training videos

on VMware View release today.  These short instructional videos provide an overview and then a demonstration installing and configuring for:

-                              View Connection Server

-                              View Composer

-                              Persona Management

-                              Floating Linked Clones and Dedicated Linked Clones

-                              Windows, Mac, and iPad VMware View Client

Security Server

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: #SUPPORT

- VMWARE SUPPORT INSIDER

My VMware Improvements

VMware will be adding new features and functionality to My VMware very soon. These enhancements are the direct result of feedback and requests from customers. Read on for highlights of the new features.

Getting Started with vSphere Web Client Programming – Setting up your development environment

As promised in last week’s

post, here is the first  installment in a 3-part video series entitled

Getting Started with vSphere Web Client Programming which will provide some insights as well as some deep-dive training and step-by-step demonstrations and examples of how you can setup a platform for developing your own solutions for the vSphere Web Client.

Getting Started with vSphere Web Client Programming – Creating User Interface extensions

Here is the second installment in our 3-part video series entitled

Getting Started with vSphere Web Client Programming which will provide some insights as well as some deep-dive training and step-by-step demonstrations and examples of how you can setup a platform for developing your own solutions for the vSphere Web Client.

Getting Started with vSphere Web Client Programming – User Interface and Data Services

This video is the third in our 3-part video series entitled “

Getting Started with vSphere Web Client Programming” which will provide some insights as well as some deep-dive training and step-by-step demonstrations and examples of how you can setup a platform for developing your own solutions for the vSphere Web Client.

Migrating virtual machines with Raw Device Mappings (RDMs)

To celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday in the US today, we have a new presentation, which we have incorporated into one of our very popular KB articles:

Migrating virtual machines with Raw Device Mappings (RDMs) (1005241).

vSphere Metro Storage Cluster – Uniform vs Non-Uniform

Last week I presented in Belgium at the quarterly VMUG event in Brussels. We did a Q&A and got some excellent questions. One of them was about vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC) solutions and more explicitly about Uniform vs Non-Uniform architectures. I have written extensively about this in the

vSphere Metro Storage Cluster whitepaper but realized I never blogged that part. So although this is largely a repeat of what I wrote in the white paper I hope it is still useful for some of you.

Change IP address of VMware vCloud Cell

For an existing environment I had to change the VLAN and IP address that was used on the VMware vCloud 5.1 Cell. In

VMware KB 1028657 is written how to change the IP address in the database and in the vCloud Cell config, but there is no mention of how to do this at Linux level. This post will show you the whole process.

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: #KB-ARTICLES

Please consider checking -

http://blogs.vmware.com/kbdigest/ regularly for new and updated KB Articles.

OEM Authorized Support Providers Partner monthly Support Report (2038743) Date Published: 11/14/2012

VMware Data Recovery

Synchronizing the VDR appliance with an NTP server (1019539) Date Published: 11/14/2012

VMware ESX

VMware ESX 4.1, Patch Release ESX410-201211001 (2036254) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware ESX 4.1 Patch ESX410-201211402-SG: Updates bind-libs and bind-utils RPMs (2036262) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware ESX 4.1 Patch ESX410-201211405-SG: Updates nss and nspr libraries (2036268) Date Published: 11/16/2012

Unable to install ESXi/ESX on Dell R510 with PERC S300 controller (2007524) Date Published: 11/14/2012

ESX 4.0 fails to initialize USB during boot (2011949) Date Published: 11/16/2012

ESX/ESXi 4.1 host takes a long time to reconnect to vCenter Server after a reboot (2012050) Date Published: 11/16/2012

Enabling the SSD option on SSD based disks/LUNs that are not detected as SSD by default (2013188) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Determining if a VMware Tools upgrade requires a reboot of a Windows guest operating system (2015163) Date Published: 11/13/2012

Windows guests running .Net 2.0 applications fail periodically when running on ESX/ESXi 4.1 on AMD systems (2004129) Date Published: 11/14/2012

VMware ESX 4.1 Patch ESX410-201211401-SG: Updates VMkernel, CIM, Tools, and others (2036261) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware ESX 4.1 Patch ESX410-201211403-BG: Updates ipmi-ipmi-si-drv driver (2036263) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware ESX 4.1 Patch ESX410-201211406-BG: Updates net-e1000e driver (2036269) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware ESX 4.1 Patch ESX410-201211407-SG: Updates expat, python, and python-libs (2036271) Date Published: 11/16/2012

Cannot power on a virtual machine located in an NFS datastore (2037507) Date Published: 11/15/2012

VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi 4.1 Patch ESXi410-201211401-SG: Updates Firmware (2036273) Date Published: 11/16/2012

Using vSphere Auto Deploy to create a vCloud Networking and Security Stateless ESXi image (2036701) Date Published: 11/12/2012

Creating a local VMFS datastore after a fresh installation of ESXi 5.0 fails with the error: Error during the configuration of the host:Failed to update the disk partition information (2037192) Date Published: 11/15/2012

vMotion of Windows virtual machine fails at 63% with the error: Source detected that destination failed to resume (2015595) Date Published: 11/14/2012

RDM with a size superior to 2 TB reported as invalid disk from the Windows 2003 Guest OS (2034200) Date Published: 11/14/2012

LSI SAS HBA is unable to see the LUNs after upgrading to ESXi 5.x (2034740) Date Published: 11/12/2012

ESXi 5.1 host fails with a purple diagnostic screen when powering on a virtual machine with a PCI passthru device (2039030) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Implementing vSphere Metro Storage Cluster using Hitachi Storage Cluster for VMware vSphere (featuring Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform) (2039406) Date Published: 11/12/2012

Large Packet loss at Guest OS level on the VMXNet3 vNIC in ESXi 4.x / 5.x (2039495) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Cannot communicate over a Virtual Distributed Switch Uplink if its name has more than 31 characters (2038953) Date Published: 11/15/2012

VMware ESXi 4.1, Patch Release ESXi410-201211001 (2036257) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware ESXi 4.1 Patch ESXi410-201211402-BG: Updates VMware tools (2036274) Date Published: 11/16/2012

ESXi host does not retain Active Directory membership after a reboot (2005012) Date Published: 11/14/2012

When upgrading, vCenter Server attempts to upgrade the vpxa agent on ESX/ESXi hosts a second time (2035759) Date Published: 11/15/2012

SSH connection after upgrading to ESXi 5.0 fails with the auth.log error: Could not load host key (2010607) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Configuring HA on an ESXi 5.x host fails with the error: Cannot install the vCenter agent service. Unknown installer error (2032101) Date Published: 11/12/2012

Creating a quiesced snapshot in Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2 fails with the error: Snapshot guest failed (2034002) Date Published: 11/15/2012

Data corruption when using VMware ESXi 5.x with VAAI hardware accelerated VMFS data movement enabled on IBM System Storage DCS3700, DS3512, and DS3524 Storage Controllers (2039608) Date Published: 11/15/2012

VMware Fusion

VMware Fusion 5 repeatedly prompts for the license key (2038051) Date Published: 11/12/2012

VMware Service Manager

Rules in conditional branches within Service Manager are executed even when the conditional branch is already closed (2035653) Date Published: 11/15/2012

The Manage CMDB Task in Service Manager fails with a Permission Denied error (2031368) Date Published: 11/16/2012

Bullet points are positioned incorrectly in the VMware Service Manager Customer portal (2039115) Date Published: 11/12/2012

After rating/commenting on a Knowledge Base article in the Service Manager Customer portal, the screen refreshes and all formatting is lost (2039443) Date Published: 11/14/2012

‘Only when blank’ option unavailable for Model and Manufacturer in the integration mapping in VMware Service Manager 9.x (2039456) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Removing an SLA applied to a call after the call is saved in VMware Service Manager 7.x / 8.x. / 9.x (2031104) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Troubleshooting a performance problem in Service Manager (vSM) (2033938) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Using a Multi QD widget in a Service Manager form causes display issues with screen width and height (2035647) Date Published: 11/15/2012

When reviewing a closed Service Manager request that is reopened via the API, the request appears as closed (2038750) Date Published: 11/16/2012

The Equal & Below parameter for CMDB Item Type does not work in the Service Manager IPK Statistics – Top Ten CMDB report (2039114) Date Published: 11/12/2012

Configuration Portability does not import all configuration information for Customer Survey in VMware Service Manager 9.x (2039446) Date Published: 11/14/2012

VMware ThinApp

Virtualized Internet Explorer 8.0 captured on an operating system version earlier than Windows Vista fails to start on Windows 8 (2038758) Date Published: 11/13/2012

VMware vCenter Operations Manager (vApp)

Performing a command-line upgrade of the vCenter Operations 5.0 Appliance (2031783) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware vCenter Orchestrator

Logging in to vCenter Orchestrator using SSO fails with the error: Failed trying to retrieve token: ns0:RequestFailed: Delegate is invalid (2039229) Date Published: 11/12/2012

Logging in to vCenter Orchestrator with SSO fails if the System Domain is not in the list of Default Domains (2039317) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Registering vCenter Orchestrator with a vCenter Single Sign On server which contains a large number of groups might cause issues (2039478) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware vCenter Server

vCenter Server Search function fails with error: A connection failure occurred (2012215) Date Published: 11/16/2012

Applying a host profile fails with the error: Resource group host/user/pool<id> not found on system (2017951) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Changing the vCenter Inventory Service HTTP port from Port 10080 to another port in vCenter Server (2031371) Date Published: 11/16/2012

Plugins installed in the vSphere Client connected to vCenter Server 5.0 do not support shortcuts or copy and paste functions (2034372) Date Published: 11/12/2012

Logging in to vSphere Client 5.1 fails with the error: The server took too long to respond (2038918) Date Published: 11/14/2012

vCenter Server shows ESXi 5.0 host with Lockdown Mode enabled even though it is not enabled (2017394) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Joining an ESXi host to a domain and specifying an authentication proxy IP fails with the error: The specified vSphere Authentication proxy server is not reachable, or has denied access to the service (2031477) Date Published: 11/16/2012

Storage Monitoring Service fails to start (2039067) Date Published: 11/15/2012

Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 fails with the error: Error 29107. The service or solution user is already registered. (2035940) Date Published: 11/15/2012

VMware vCenter Server Appliance

vCenter Server Appliance fails with the error: FATAL: remaining connection slots are reserved for non-replication superuser connections (2039381) Date Published: 11/14/2012

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager

Using customized SSL key integrating the FQN in Site Recovery Manager 5.x results in error: The host name in the Subject Alternative name of the provided certificate does not match the SRM host name. (2039269) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Protection and recovery of virtual machines when LUN replication is from one or more arrays on the protected site to one or more arrays on the DR site (2012287) Date Published: 11/13/2012

VMware vCenter Update Manager

Update Manager fails to update some hosts with an Unknown Error (2012244) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware vCloud Automation Center

VMware vCloud Automation Center 4.5.x error: Service cannot be started. (2037812) Date Published: 11/15/2012

Valid Custom Property value for Infrastructure.Admin.MachineOU in VMware vCloud Automation Center 4.5.x / 5.1.x (2037822) Date Published: 11/15/2012

Installing vCloud Automation Center 4.5.x / 5.1.x components fail with error: Access is denied. (2037946) Date Published: 11/15/2012

vSphere Agents is very slow when data collecting in VMware vCloud Automation Center (2038449) Date Published: 11/16/2012

Performing a data collection in vCloud Automation Center fails with the error: The DELETE statement conflicted with the REFERENCE constraint (2038987) Date Published: 11/12/2012

VMware vCloud Director

Resetting an Organization network fails with error: Invalid or exceeds the maximum number of characters permitted (2020827) Date Published: 11/16/2012

VMware vCloud Usage Meter

Resetting the vCloud Usage Meter root password (2034008) Date Published: 11/12/2012

VMware View Manager

The Connect USB Device menu in the View Client displays the message: Desktop Initializing… (2039429) Date Published: 11/14/2012

Connecting to a View Desktop using PCoIP fails with a black screen (2039529) Date Published: 11/16/2012

HOT-NEWS |

PARTNER |

FEATURED-ARTICLE |

SECURITY-ADVISORIES |

PATCH-NOTIFICATION |

PRESS-RELEASES |

TWEETS |

TRAINING |

WEBCASTS |

VMWORLD |

TAM |

TV |

VFABRIC  |

SECURITY |

EUC |

VSPHERE |

LABS |

OFFICIAL-BLOGS |

EXTERNAL-BLOGS |

VMUG|

EDUCATION |

SUPPORT |

KB-ARTICLES

サービスコンソールを搭載しているESX 4.xを2013年8月15日付でのライフサイクル（End Of Availability）終了を発表しました。

VMware vSphere ESX End of Availability

2013年8月15日以降は、VMwareサイトからESX 4.xのバイナリファイルダウンロードやライセンスキーの生成ができなくなります。

またvMA 1と4についても同じ日付でライフサイクルが終了するとのことですので、2013年8月15日以降も利用する方は、事前にファイルやライセンスキーをバックアップ（またはダウンロード）しておくことを進めています。

ただし、サポートは1年ほど（正確には10ヶ月）先の2014年5月21日まで行うとのことです。

ちなみに、各製品のサポート終了情報は下記のページをご参照ください。

LIFE CYCLE POLICY

IMPORTANT: Even after you can created a vApp and connected it to the Organization Network - I won't be by default able to communicate to outside world (although two VMs within the SAME vApp would be able to communicate to each other). That's because are no NAT or Firewall rules that would allow for outbound communication

In my previous post I created a PAYG Organization vDC. I do want to return to the topic of different resource allocation models in later blogpost, but right now I want to press on an actually get creating vApps, and running vCD generated workloads. To do that we need at least one catalog, with either media uploaded (iso) to install an OS manual (such quaint notion!) or import an existing VM either from vSphere itself OR from .OVF file. The catalog is respositry of existing VMs in most cases that have been configured for use by the tenents. How much configuration is up to you. I think if your requirements are pretty simple you could use vCD as your "storefront" - but if your really serious about application level customizations within the guest operating systems I think you would get more satisfaction out of the vFabric Application Director and/or the vCloud Automation Center (the product formerly known as DynamicOps). I'm still very much learning about how all the parts (of which vCD is just one) fit together - but from what I've been able to fathom - vFabric Application Director would be of strong interest to application owner who has to build out complicated multi-tier applications in automated fashion, whereas vCAC is about controlling how those applications get deployed - internally on a private vCD instance; externally through a vCloud Service Provider - or to one of many so called "public" clouds like Amazon EC2. Both have the concept of an "application blueprint" - right now the way I'm seeing it is that there are many ways of creating a catalog with different levels of complexity and flexibility. Choose your weapon.

Anyway, for now I'm taking baby-steps and just working out how all this stuff works. At some stage I will have to return to this much larger topic, for now lets focus on how the vCloud Director Catalog works.

A catalog for an Organization can be created by the vCD System Administrator, Organization Admin or anyone with the Catalog Author right. In attempt to stick with delegating responsibility on a role-by-role basis I used my Organization Admin account (rmoorcroft@corp.com) to delegate responsibility to the group called "CorpHQ - Catalog Authors".

Delegating a Catalog Author:

1. Click the "Administration" tab

2. Expand >Members and select Groups

3. Click the Import Groups... icon

4. Add the appropriate group, and assign the privilege.

After logging in as one of my "Catalog Authors" users, I could see that vCloud Director hides the "Administration" tab - which is only visible to the System Administrator or the Organization Admin. Here the user jwild@corp.com is a catalog author...

Creating a Catalog:

1. As the Organization Admin after login into the URL provided (in my case https://vcd01.corp.com/cloud/org/corphq), and selecting "New Catalog" from the right-hand sidebar:

2. You then give the catalog a name and description

3. Share to Users and Groups: The final part of the wizard is sharing the catalog with others WITHIN the organization. A separate process called "publishing" is used to make a catalog available BETWEEN organizations. That's something that's enabled on the properties of the Organization that you create. For example I could give everyone in the Organization the right to at least "read" the contents of the catalog. Allowing just System Administrator, Organization Admins, and Catalog Authors to make changes inside the catalog. Everyone below a "Catalog Author" is really just a read-only user of the catalog - as they are either a vApp Author who makes new vApps from the catalog or the vApp User who merely interacts with the vApps created from the catalog.

4. Click Finish creates the catalog.

Once the catalog is created it can be populated with content. By whom? I wouldn't be surprised if this would have to be at least the person responsible for Windows or Linux in your environment, perhaps even an application owner if it was multiple VMs that would be making up the vApp. It's possible that the application you want to bring into the catalog is already in a .OVF format, or alternatively will need to be built from individual operating systems templates in a vApp, and the imported back into the catalog once ready for use.

Adding an .ISO image to the Catalog

I wouldn't recommend this personally, its a lot of hard work - plus additionally if you are using "Static IP Pools" that are optionally created when you define the vCNS Edge Gateway for the Organization vDC those IP settings are not applied - and you will either need the Edge Gateway to be a DHCP server or alternatively use the guest operating systems interface to configure the IP settings. But if you must do it this way (and I did it once so at least I had the experience) then this is how it is done.

1. As the Catalog Author (or higher) select the "Catalogs" tab or "Manage Catalogs" on the right-hand sidebar

2. Select My Organization's Catalogs

3. Select your catalog (in my case called thrillingly entitled "CorpHQ" Catalog

4. Select the "Media" Tab, and click the Upload... button.

5. Next the Upload Media dialog box, click the Browse button and locate your .ISO file. Specify a name, description, a Organization vDC, and where to store the file.

Note: I've sometimes found on new clients there are number of Java based pop-ups to acknowledge. Additionally, it does (in my lab at least) take a wee while for the path to the .ISO file to appear in the dialog box. I'm also wondering if I should have created a dedicate "catalog datastore" for holding this sort of content. I have one inside vCenter after all.

Once you click the upload button then an upload takes place from your local client into vCD:

Adding an .OVF to the Catalog:

To add an OVF one first needs an OVF to upload! These can be sourced from the VMware MarketPlace or from vendors website. Another source could be a VM or collection of VMs from your existing vSphere environment. Don't forget ordinary templates in vCenter could be converted into VMs, and using the Export OVF option in the web-client converted into a portable format that vCloud Director expects.

Once exported the corresponding .OVF can be "imported" into vCloud Director.

Note: Given the size of the .OVF this import process can take time. And its not just the file copy process (the actual upload) it all so needs to be "imported" by vCD as well. And this can take sometime as well. I think that's because there's two uploads - first on to some "temp" area on the vCD via the "Transfer Service" and then a second "import" process when it is uploaded to the datastore selected in the storage profile.

Creating a vApp from an .ISO

The process of creating a vApp is similar if you are using .ISO or an existing .OVF image. Except one spawns a create process, and requires you define the VM in some details, as well as attaching the ISO to the VM(s), the other doesn't require that work at all. In my case delegate the "CorpHQ - vApp Authors" rights into the CorpHQ Organization, and logged in as the user "Donald Draper". From which he could either +Add a vApp from the Catalog or Build a New vApp.

The "Build a New vApp" allows for the option to create a "New Virtual Machine"

Note: Notice the capacity to either Add a VM from the catalog or create a new VM from scratch.

Once created (I will go into more detail on this with the .OVF method), you can open the vApp

Select the VM in the vApp, click the Insert CD/DVD from Catalog, and then select the .ISO image and click Insert

You can then power on the vApp/VM, it should boot from the DVD, and you can open a console on it to carry out the installation. [Don't forget you have install VMware Tools at the end, and do any other post configuration tasks - such as enabled VMware Tools Time Synchronization]

Once you have installed the OS you can select the VM, select the Actions icon (in the shape of gear) and choose Install VMware Tools.

Creating a vApp from .OVF file:

1. Start by click the Add vApp from Catalog

2. Select the All Templates option, and select your imported .OVF file

Note: You can see here there is "Gold Masters" option. There really is no difference between a "Template" and a "Gold Master" from functional view point. It's more to do with development process. So you can start off with a vApp Template being regarded as a "beta" version during a testing phase. Once the vApp Author is satisfied with the template it can be marked as a "Gold Master" its is regarded as reaching its final state.

3. Set a name and description for the vApp

4. Set a name for the VM within the vApp and what Storage Profile to use

5. Configure Networking: The next page allows us to configure the networking options. I like to enable the "Switch to the advanced networking workflow" option, as this exposes all the different IP options available. There's quite a lot going on in this dialog box, and so its worth spending sometime walking through the options.

So firstly, as with vCenter it is entirely possible (although not particularly sane) to have a VM name different from the guest operating systems hostname. The Network pull down gives you an number of options. The "Templates" network is being inherited from the .OVF. The source of the .OVF was my template from vCenter environment that by default is configured for the "template" portgroup on my Infrastructure DvSwitch. The "CORPHQ-vCNS" is the Organizational network that allows for broader communication to the Corporate Network. If we select this option the "IP Assignment" options will become available as well. For these to appear you must enable the option "Switch to the advanced networking workflow".

Finally, the "Add Network" option allows you to add a vApp Network to the vApp - which displays an interface to specify the vApps default gateway, subnet mask, DNS, DNS Suffix and Static IP Pool just for use by the VMs within the vApp... In my case I allowed the vApp to reside on the CORPHQ-vCNS network:

Three options are relatively striaght forward. The "Static IP Pool" pool uses the IP Pool we created during the creation of the Organizational vDC for the "Test & Dev" environment earlier - vCD will take the first available IP in the pool and assign it to the VM selected. The "Static Manual" allows you to set a static IP address from the pool rather than it being randomly chosen. Finally, DHCP assumes there is a DHCP server on the network or the vCNS has been enabled for DHCP. [More about that later!]

6. Finally, the wizard allows you to enable "Fence vApp" networking. This is popular in development environment where developers want to check out VMs for testing purposes, but do not want to have the bother of re-IP-ing the VMs. You will notice in this dialog box it says there is a "Direct" connection - I think that's a little misleading, as it might suggest to some that this Organization is directly connected to the External Network. What this means is the VMs in the vApp will be directly connected to the Organization Network - the Organization network has vCNS Edge Gateway that acts the interface to the external network. If the VMs were behind a vApp Network or a Fenced vApp they would not be directly connected to the Organization Network.

THIS IMAGE NEEDS UP DATING FOR 5.1 network!

At this point the vApp will be created - and if you want to add an other VM of the same type, you can open the vApp, and use the + icon to add an other copy of the .OVF into it. That's what I've have done here - I've added a second VM into the vApp and called it corphqcs01.

Of course, you should now be able to power on the vApp, and see the guest OSes in each of the VMs. With Windows VMs the deployment process automatically resets the local administrator password to make it different from what was contained in the OVF. The creator/owner of the vApp can find out these passwords by selecting the VM in this view.

In the Properties dialog box, under the "Guest OS Customization" tab you can see the randomly generated password for the local administrator account.

Note: I noticed that this password reset appears to happen for the 1st VM in the vApp, but when you add a subsequent VM (the same one from the catalog) that password reset didn't happen (the guest customization did!)

I denne uges vFredag tager vi et kig på, hvor lang VMware er kommet med udviklingen af VMware vFabric Data Director og Application Director, og hvordan de produkter tilbyder DBaaS og Apps-aas.

tilmeld dig her

ESXi からSyslogを飛ばしてみます。
今回は、rsyslogサーバ（Oracle Linux 6.2） に対して、UDPでSyslogを飛ばしてみます。

参考

ESXi 5.0におけるsyslogの構成
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2014699

Syslogサーバは、こんな感じです。
デフォルトで入っているrsyslogを使用しています。

[root@oel62 ~]# cat /etc/oracle-release
Oracle Linux Server release 6.2
[root@oel62 ~]# rsyslogd -v
rsyslogd 4.6.2, compiled with:
        FEATURE_REGEXP:                         Yes
        FEATURE_LARGEFILE:                      No
        FEATURE_NETZIP (message compression):   Yes
        GSSAPI Kerberos 5 support:              Yes
        FEATURE_DEBUG (debug build, slow code): No
        Atomic operations supported:            Yes
        Runtime Instrumentation (slow code):    No

See http://www.rsyslog.com for more information.

ちなみに、今回は Syslogサーバ側のファイアウォールはすべて無効にしてあります。

[root@oel62 ~]# iptables -L
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

ESXi 5.0 からSyslogを飛ばします。（ESXi 5.1 でもやり方は同じです。）

~ # vmware -v
VMware ESXi 5.0.0 build-623860

1. まず、Syslogサーバ側の受信設定をします。

設定ファイルを編集します。
リモートのサーバからのUDPの514番ポートにむけたSyslogを受信できるように、
設定ファイル（/etc/rsyslog.conf）から、下記のコメントを外します。

[root@oel62 ~]# vi /etc/rsyslog.conf

# Provides UDP syslog reception
#$ModLoad imudp.so
#$UDPServerRun 514
↓（コメント「#」を削除する。）
# Provides UDP syslog reception
$ModLoad imudp.so
$UDPServerRun 514

そして、rsyslogのデーモンを再起動です。

[root@oel62 ~]# service rsyslog restart
システムロガーを停止中:                        [  OK  ]
システムロガーを起動中: -r option only supported in compatibility modes 0 to 2 - ignored
                                                         [  OK  ]

2. ESXi で、Syslogに対するファイアウォール解放します。

これをしないと、ESXiからの送信もブロックされてしまいます。

まず、現状の設定を確認。

~ # esxcli network firewall ruleset list | grep syslog
syslog                 false

ちなみに、ファイアウォールのルールはこんな感じです。

~ # esxcli network firewall ruleset rule list | grep syslog
syslog              Outbound   UDP       Dst               514       514
syslog              Outbound   TCP       Dst               514       514
syslog              Outbound   TCP       Dst              1514      1514

ファイアウォールを開放します。

~ # esxcli network firewall ruleset set --ruleset-id=syslog --enabled=true

Syslog転送が許可されました。

~ # esxcli network firewall ruleset list | grep syslog
syslog                 true

3. つぎは、ESXi 側で、Syslogの転送設定をします。

デフォルトの設定状態を確認しておきます。

~ # esxcli system syslog config get
   Default Rotation Size: 1024
   Default Rotations: 8
   Log Output: /scratch/log
   Log To Unique Subdirectory: false
   Remote Host: <none>

設定を変更します。
UDPプロトコルで、192.168.0.192 のSyslogサーバにログを転送します。
デフォルトなので 514番ポートにむけて転送することになります。

~ # esxcli system syslog config set --loghost="udp://192.168.0.192"

確認すると、転送先のSyslogサーバが設定されています。

~ # esxcli system syslog config get
   Default Rotation Size: 1024
   Default Rotations: 8
   Log Output: /scratch/log
   Log To Unique Subdirectory: false
   Remote Host: udp://192.168.0.192

ESXi側で、Syslogサービスを再読み込みするとログ転送が開始されます。

~ # esxcli system syslog reload

4. 転送されたログを確認します。

ESXiは絶えずログ転送しているので、成功していればすぐわかりますが、
あえてテストメッセージを送ってみます。

Syslogサーバは、デフォルトの /var/log/messages ファイルにログを出力します。

（ESXi側）
~ # esxcli system syslog mark --message="SyslogTest `date`"; date
Thu Nov 29 14:52:29 UTC 2012

（Syslogサーバ側）
[root@oel62 ~]# date
2012年 11月 29日 木曜日23:51:10 JST
[root@oel62 ~]# grep SyslogTest /var/log/messages

Nov 29 14:52:25 esx01.local shell[853546]: esxcli system syslog mark --message="SyslogTest `date`"; date
Nov 29 14:52:26 esx01.local mark: SyslogTest Thu Nov 29 14:52:25 UTC 2012

実行したテストコマンド自体と、テストメッセージがSyslogサーバで受信できてました。

ESXiは、UTC（世界協定時）で動作するため、
基本的にJST（日本時間）から マイナス9時間表示になってしまいます。

Syslogサーバ自体の時間がちょっとずれているのでアレですが・・・

Syslogは、送信したメッセージにタイムスタンプ情報を持っているため、

受信したログの時刻が、Syslogサーバ自体の時刻とは マイナス9時間ずれています。

VMware製品を検証したい人にお勧めのサイトを見つけました。

2012 VMware Hands-on Labs - Content Catalog

http://hol-cme.cloudfoundry.com/index.html

内容は、下記のような感じです。

HOL-INF-01 - Essential IT Management with VMware vCenter Protect

HOL-INF-02 - Explore vSphere 5.1 Distributed Switch (vDS) New Features

HOL-INF-03 - Automate Your vSphere 5.1 Deployment with Auto Deploy

HOL-INF-04 - Deliver Optimal Performance with VMware vSphere 5.1

・・・

これ、vForum2012 のハンズオンラボでもやっていたものみたいです。

実際は、このサイトにはまだ「coming soon」なものが結構たくさんあります。

・英語オンリー

・そもそも、これをやる環境を用意するのが大変

なのですが、

ちょっと何かやってみたい時に重宝しそうです。

これが日本語であればいいのに。

プロフィールの編集 のところで、名前の編集を c_river とやってるんですが、

表示が criver となってしまいます。

何で？

今回は、ESXiのSyslog設定の続きです。

以前に ESXiのSyslog転送の設定方法についてポストしましたが、

（記事はこちら）

ESXi 5.x で Syslog転送。rsyslogで受信。

こういうことを検証すると、
設定の切り戻しが必要なケースが多いと思います。
そのため、Syslog設定のリセット方法をお伝えします。

1. まず、現在の設定状態を確認します。

現状では、192.168.0.192 のSyslogサーバが転送先として指定されています。

~ # esxcli system syslog config get
   Default Rotation Size: 1024
   Default Rotations: 8
   Log Output: /scratch/log
   Log To Unique Subdirectory: false
   Remote Host: udp://192.168.0.192

2. 設定をデフォルトに戻します。

転送先指定の Remote Host （loghost） 設定をリセットします。

~ # esxcli system syslog config set --reset=loghost

この時点で表示上はコマンド反映されますが、
実際の設定はsyslogをリロードするまで反映されません。

~ # esxcli system syslog config get
   Default Rotation Size: 1024
   Default Rotations: 8
   Log Output: /scratch/log
   Log To Unique Subdirectory: false
   Remote Host: <none>

3. ESXiのSyslogをリロードします。

~ # esxcli system syslog reload

このコマンド実行後にSyslogサーバ側のログファイルを見ると
ESXi からのログ出力が停止していることが確認できるはずです。

4. 最後に、ESXiのファイアウォールでSyslogのポートをふさいでおきます。

現状は、syslog転送を許可しています。

~ # esxcli network firewall ruleset list | grep syslog
syslog                 true

コマンドで、syslogルールセットを無効にします。

~ # esxcli network firewall ruleset set --ruleset-id=syslog --enabled=false

syslogが無効になりました。

ファイアウォール設定は、コマンドを実行すると特に再起動しなくても即反映されます。

~ # esxcli network firewall ruleset list | grep syslog
syslog                false

以上、Syslog転送先設定のリセット手順でした。

vCenter 5.1 には、
vCenter Single Sign-On（vCenterSSO）、vCenter Inventory Servicesの事前インストールが必須となります。

新しくSSOのしくみを使うことが必須となるため、

vCenter管理者など、ログインユーザについての注意が必要そうです。

マニュアルからの抜粋（2か所）です。

vCenter Single Sign-On が vCenter Server アップグレードに与える影響
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.install.doc/GUID-3BDE41A9-32C2-40D8-A17E-5070E2332D2F.html

vCenter Single Sign-On および vCenter Server を異なるホストまたは仮想マシンにインストールする場合は、
vCenter Server へのログイン アクセスを管理していた以前のローカル オペレーティング システム ユーザーは Single Sign-On では使用できません。

vCenter Single Sign-On をマルチサイト モードまたはクラスタ化された高可用性モードでインストールすると、
ローカル オペレーティング システム ユーザーのアップグレード前の権限がすべて失われます。
vCenter Server 5.1 では、「ローカル オペレーティング システム ユーザー」という用語は、
vCenter Server ホスト マシンまたは仮想マシンではなく、Single Sign-On ホスト マシンのローカル ユーザーを指します。

上記を見ると下記のようなSSOインストールをした場合、
Windowsのローカルユーザが使えなくなるケースがあるようです。
たとえば、ローカルのAdministratorユーザでログイン不可となったりします。

• vCenterとvCenterSSOを別のWindowsサーバ（仮想マシン）にインストールする場合
  

          ※SSOからvCenterのローカルユーザを参照できないためだと思われます。

• 「高可用性モード」（vCenterSSO自体が持つ機能）でインストールする場合
  

　　　　 ※この構成の場合、複数のSSOサーバが稼働することになるので

　　　　　　どこかのローカルユーザを参照することはせずに、AD（Active Directory）、LDAPなどを

　　　　　　参照する必要があるためと思われます。

vCenter Single Sign-On、Inventory Service、vCenter Server のインストールまたはアップグレードに必要な情報
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.install.doc/GUID-200B9E03-D46B-44A9-9B0E-4863D067CFFF.html

 

Single Sign-On の新規インストールにプライマリ ノードを作成する場合、次のいずれかのオプションを選択します。（Simple Install には該当しません）。

■ 基本： シングル ノードの Single Sign-On インストールの唯一のノードで、ローカル システム ユーザーがアクセスできます。
■ マルチノード高可用性またはマルチサイト Single Sign-On の新規インストールのプライマリ ノード。

「高可用性モード」については、

vCenterSSOをインストールするサーバが1台であれば不要なので、個人的には可能な限り
SSOのインストールでは「基本」モードを選択したほうが無難と考えられます。

仮に、SSOサーバを「高可用性モード」にした場合は下記のような技が必要になります。

ちょっと敷居が高い感じです。

vCenterやSSOに可用性が必要な場合は、「基本モード」+ vSphereHAで構成するのが現実的な気がします。

Configuring vCenter Single Sign On for High Availability

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2033588

Setting up Apache load balancing software with vCenter Single Sign On

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2034157

SSOサーバをActive/Activeで稼働させ、

Apache + mod_proxy で分散アクセスさせています。

いずれにしても、
vCenter5.1の新規インストール、アップグレードをする場合は
「ちゃんと想定しているユーザでログインできるか」 の事前検証が必須になると思います。

以上、SSOのログインユーザには要注意という話でした。

When the character Maverick from the movie Top Gun exclaimed, “I feel the need, the need for speed”, you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a sound bite from a CIO discussing their transactional databases. Whether it’s a financial organization predicting share prices, a bank knowing whether it can approve a loan or a marketing organisation reaching consumers with a compelling promotional offer, the need to access, store, process and analyze data as quickly as possible is an imperative for any business looking to gain a competitive edge. Hence when in 2011, SAP announced their new in-memory platform HANA for enterprise applications everyone took note as they coined the advantage of real-time analytics. SAP HANA promised to not just make databases dramatically faster like traditional business warehouse accelerator systems but instead speed up the front end, enabling companies to run arbitrary, complex queries on billions of records in a matter of seconds as opposed to hours. The vendors of old legacy traditional databases were facing a major challenge, most notably the king of them all…Oracle.

The Birth and Emergence of Big Data

Back in the days of mainframe, you’d find the application and transactional data of reporting databases physically stored in the same system. This was due to applications, operating systems and databases being designed to maximize their hardware resources, which consequently meant you couldn’t process transactions and process report simultaneously. The bottleneck here was cost, in that if you wanted to scale you needed another mainframe.

After the advent of client servers where applications could run on a centralized database server via multiple and cost effective servers, scalability was achieved by simply adding additional application servers. Regardless, of this a new bottleneck was quickly established with systems relying on a single database server and requests from ever increasing application servers that ended up causing I/O stagnation. This problem became exasperated with OLTP (online transaction processing), where report creation required the system to concurrently read multiple tables in the database. Added to this servers and processors kept getting faster while disks (despite the emergence of SSD) were quickly becoming the bottleneck to automated processes that were producing large amounts of data that concurrently resulted in more report requests.

The net effect was a downward spiral where the increase of users requiring an increase of reports from the databases meant an increase in huge amounts of data being requested from disks that simply weren’t up to the job. When you then factored in the data proliferation of external users caused by the Internet and pressure inducing laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley, the demand to analyze even more data even quicker has reached fever point. With data and user volumes increasing by a factor of thousands compared to the I/O capability of databases, the transaction-based industry faced a challenge that required a dramatic shift and change.  Cue the 2011 emergence of SAP’s HANA.

Real-Time In Memory Platform Presents a Groundbreaking Approach

One of the major advantages of SAP HANA’s ability to run in real time is that it offers a non-requirement for data redundancy as it’s built to run as a single database. With clusters of affordable and scalable servers, transactional and analytical data are run on the same database, hence eliminating different types of databases for different application needs. Oracle on the other hand has built an empire on exactly the opposite.

Oracle has thrived on a model where generally companies start with a simple database that’s utilized for checking sales orders and ensuring product delivery to customers but as the business grows they need more databases with different and more demanding functions. Functions such as managing customer relationships, complex reporting and analysis drives a need for new databases that are separate from the actual business requiring data to be moved from one system to another. Eventually you have a sprawl of databases as existing ones are unable to handle the workloads making it almost impossible to track data movements yet alone attain real time updates. So while the Oracle marketing machine is also pitching the benefits of in-memory via its Exalytics appliance and in-memory database, TimesTen, Oracle are certainly in no rush to break this traditional model of database sprawl and the money-spinning licenses that come with it.

Looking closely at the Oracle Exalytics / TimesTen package, despite the hype, it merely is just an add-on product meaning that an end user will still need a license for the transactional database, another license for the data warehouse database and yet another license for TimesTen for Oracle Exalytics.

Moreover, the Oracle bolt-on approach serves to sell more of their hardware commodity and in some ways perversely justify their acquisition of SUN Microsystems, all at the expense of the customer. Due to the Exalytics approach continuing the traditional requirement for transactional data to be duplicated from the application to the warehouse and once again to Exalytics, the end user not only ends up with three copies of the data, they also have to have three levels of storage and servers. In contrast SAP HANA is designed to be a single database that runs both transactional applications and Business Warehouse deployments. Not only does SAP HANA’s one copy of data replace the two or three required for Oracle it also eliminates the need for materialized views, redundant aggregates and indexes leaving a significantly reduced data footprint.

Comparing HANA to Oracle’s TimesTen and Exalytics

As expected Oracle have already initiated their FUD team with bogus claims and untruths against HANA as well as even pushing their TimesTen as a like for like comparison. Where this is hugely flawed is that they fail to acknowledge or admit that SAP HANA is a completely groundbreaking design as opposed to a bolt-on approach.  With SAP HANA data is completely managed and accessed in RAM consequently doing away with the requirement of MOLAP, multiple indexes and other tuning features that Oracle pride themselves on.

Furthermore, despite the Oracle FUD, SAP HANA does indeed handle both unstructured and structured data, as well as utilise parallel queries for scaling out across server nodes. In this instance Oracle are trying hard to create the most confusion and subsequently detract the market from realizing that the TimesTen with Exalytics package still can’t scale out beyond the 1TB RAM limit unlike SAP HANA where each container can store up to 500TB of data all executable at high speed.

With an aggressive TCO and ROI model compared to a traditional Oracle deployment, SAP HANA also proves a lot more cost effective. With pricing based on an incremental of 64GB RAM and the total amount of data held in memory, licenses are fully inclusive of production and test/development requirements as well as the necessary tools.

SAP HANA’s embracing of VMware

Furthermore with Oracle’s belligerent stance towards VMware and the cost savings it brings to end users, SAP on the other hand has embraced it.  The recent announcement that SAP HANA is supporting VMware vSphere will provide them a vast competitive advantdge, as it will enable customers to provision instances of SAP HANA in minutes as VM templates, as well as gain benefits such as Dynamic Resource Scheduling and vSphere vMotion. By virtualizing SAP HANA with VMware, end users can quickly have several smaller HANA instances all sharing a single physical server leading to better utilization of existing resources. With the promise of certified preconfigured and optimised converged infrastructures such as the Vblock around the corner, SAP HANA appliances could be shipped with vSphere 5 and SAP HANA pre-installed within days, enabling rapid deployment for businesses.

The Business Benefits of Real-Time

With business and transactions being done in real time, SAP HANA ensures that the data and the analytics that come with them are also in real time. The process of manually polling data from multiple systems and sorting them through are inadequate in a time when businesses are facing unpredictable economic conditions and volatile demand and complex supply chains. The need is for real time metrics that are aligned to supply and demand where a retailers' shelves can accurately and immediately be stocked eliminating unnecessary inventory costs, lost sales opportunities and failed product launches. Being able to instantly analyze data at any level of granularity enables a business to quickly respond to these market insights and take decisive actions such as transferring inventory between distribution centers based on expected sales or altering the prices of promotions based on customer demand. Instead of waiting for processes that take hours, days or even weeks, SAP HANA’s real time capabilities enable businesses to react in real time to incidents.

Ultimately SAP HANA is a revolutionary step forward that will empower organizations to focus more on the business and less on the infrastructure that supports them. With the promise of new applications being built by SAP to support real time decision making as well being able to run existing applications, SAP HANA presents the opportunity to not only transform a business but also the underlying technology that supports it.

December 11th sees (I think?) the first meeting of the official VMware User Group in York. The meetings being held in Leeds:

Village Hotel South Leeds
Capitol Boulevard West
Tingley, Leeds LS27 0TS

You can register for free here -http://www.vmug.com/e/in/eid=705

There is an agenda too...

• Server Virtualization Solutions and Roadmap- Raj Mistry, HP
• VMware 5.1 Whats New- Dan Watson, VMware
• Building my Home Lab- Andrew McMorris, Communisis
• Join us for vbeers at the Victory Bar

Sadly, I won't be there myself as I am holiday, but I hope to show up at the next meeting!

The following self-paced course is now available: VMware vCloud Director Essentials [V5.1]. I worked through an earlier version that was based on vCloud Director 1.5. If your new to vCD as I was/am it's worth working through especially prior to attending the official courses.

This course is designed for SEs (VMware/Partner) and customers who want to learn about the components, architecture, functions, and benefits of vCloud Director.

To register for VMware vCloud Director Essentials [V5.1], click this link

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the course, students will possess the knowledge to:

• Briefly explain cloud computing

• Recognize cloud implementations

• Identify VMware vCloud Director functions and benefits

• Analyze vCloud Director architecture

• Identify the vCloud Director components and their functions

• Examine how to charge for resources

• Determine the licensing needs

• Recognize the prerequisites for vCloud Director installation

• Illustrate vCloud Director software installation

• Demonstrate configuration of vCloud Director software

• Differentiate the vCloud Director terminologies

• Configure and manage vSphere resources

• Configure and manage cloud resources

• Create and provision organizations

• Create and manage catalogs

• Utilize roles and rights to control access

• Recognize the different administration roles within vCloud Director

• Recognize types of networks in vCloud Director

• Create and manage the networks

• Identify different types of network pools

• Recognize user tasks and privileges

• Identify how to work with vCloud Director as a user

今回は、ESXi と Syslogサーバ（rsyslog）とで

ログ出力時間をJSTに合わせる方法を説明します。

ESXiでSyslogサーバにログ転送した場合、

ESXi側が協定世界時（UTC）で、Syslogサーバ側が日本標準時（JST）設定だと、

Syslogサーバ側のログファイルに2種類のタイムスタンプをもつログが出力されてしまいます。

たとえば現在、日本時間で19:00だったとします。

この時、JST設定のサーバと、ESXiとで、

Syslogサーバのログファイルのタイムスタンプにズレが発生します。

• ESXi から受信したログは、UTCで 10:00 と出力される。
  
• ESXi 以外から受信したログファイルは、19:00と出力される。
  

　　　　（地域設定が日本としてある、Syslogサーバ自身のログや、Linuxサーバなど）

こういった場合、ログ受信するSyslogサーバが rsyslog であれば、

ログのタイムスタンプをすべて日本時間（JST）に合わせることが可能です。

rsyslog は、だいぶ前からUNIX/Linuxで使われているSyslogの後継とされる

Syslogサーバソフトウェアです。Redhat6.x 、OEL6.x 、CentOS6.x などでは、

デフォルトでrsyslogが使用されています。

具体的には、

rsyslogのログ出力フォーマットの設定を変更して、

Syslogメッセージ自体もつタイムスタンプ（ログの生成時間）ではなく、

Syslogサーバ側での 受信時間 を出力するようにします。

rsyslgoの設定を、

UTCのまま syslog に時刻出力してしまう設定である %TIMESTAMP% から、

%timeenerated% というパラメータに変更します。

以上、ESXi のSyslogをJSTに合わせる方法でした。

具体的な設定方法についても、紹介したいと思います。

Well, today I got a flight to Frankfurt, Germany. I'm speaking at a VMUG here about the subject of DR and the cloud. [That reminds me I have some photos to find for the PPT]. The flight gave me time to do some more work on the vCloud Director courseware I got a few week back. I'm pleased to say I've completed my first run throught the literature, although there's a great many labs I need to double-back to. In the end I put the peddle to the metal and read the modules without practising each of the practicals in my "home" lab. That was slowing me down - as every practical I did resulted in a blogpost being written - about 27 of them so far!

Anyway, I've made a hit list of tasks to do between now and the dreaded exam. I'm not helped on the course front. Sadly, my 1st booking was cancelled, and now the second booking looks doubtful. At this rate it's likely that I will be ready to take the exam before the course. That isn't my idea of ideal preparation, but the situation reflects the economic situation. It's not like businesses have loads of money to throw around on training, and its not like the training companies can afford to run a course without the required quorum. It doesn't add up.

So give this situation what's a budding vCloud Director guy supposed to do. Here's my hit list:

• I've made notes during my reading, and boiled the course down to about 40 pages of notes. I need to go through my other notes and consolidate these into one file that I can quickly work through for revision purposes
• I need to go through all the labs. Plus everything the manual says you "can do" I want to configure, even if that "can do" isn't in the lab manual.
• Read and make personal notes on the vCAT (vCloud Architecture Toolkit)
• I want to hit the official admin PDFs, now I have good idea of how vCD works just to see if there's tasks/info that isn't in the course. Few courses are completely comprehensive, and their intended to be beginning of the learning curve, not the end of it...
• Finally, I want to look through the exam blueprint. This is something I perhaps should have done at the beginning. But as my mind starts thinking about the exam, and as I've learned a lot in the last couple of months - I'm sees right to look through it and see if there's anything there that comes across as surprise. As we all know courses/courseware rarely maps directly to exam objectives. The course is about how to use the product in the real world, not how to pass the VCP-Cloud exam.
• ...oh, and the other thing I want to do is learn how to backup/restore vCD, as well doing all these tasks in the GUI via PowerCLI. Mainly for my own lab purposes so I can tear down, and rebuild vCD on different releases. At some stage I will be running on beta versions of vSphere and vCD and I want an easy way to tear down/redeploy not just the vSphere layer but the vCD layer too...

以前にポストした、ESXi のSyslog JST表示について、試してみました。

この設定を、実際に試してみようと思います。

図解 ESXi のsyslogを日本標準時（JST）受信する方法

ESXi のSyslogを日本時間（JST）で出力してみます。

今回も、rsyslogを使用します。説明中の Syslogサーバ は rsyslog のことです。

ESXi  5.0 を使っていますが、ESXi 5.1 でも変わりません。

1.  まず、ESXiのSyslogを、Syslogサーバに転送しておきます。

手順については、こちらを参考にしてください

ESXi 5.x で Syslog転送。rsyslogで受信。

ESXi側で設定したSyslog設定の戻し方は、こちらです。

ESXi 5.x Syslog設定のリセットコマンド

2．Syslogサーバ側のログフォーマットの設定を変更してみます。

rsyslogの設定ファイルを編集します。

[root@oel62 ~]# vi /etc/rsyslog.conf

下記3行を、ファイルの末尾に追記します。
※実際に運用するESXiでは、もっと設定のカスタマイズが必要です。

$template TsTest1, "%timestamp%, %msg%\n"
$template LogFileName1,"/var/log/%hostname%/%programname%_%$year%_%$month%_%$day%.log"
*.* ?LogFileName1;TsTest1

Syslogサーバ再起動時のエラー抑止のため、下記のファイルも編集しておきます。

[root@oel62 ~]# vi /etc/sysconfig/rsyslog

 

変更箇所は下記の1行です。

 

SYSLOGD_OPTIONS="-c 4 -r"
↓（「-r」を削除）
SYSLOGD_OPTIONS="-c 4"

3. Syslogサーバ（rsyslog）を再起動します。

[root@oel62 ~]# service rsyslog restart
システムロガーを停止中:                                    [  OK  ]
システムロガーを起動中:                                    [  OK  ]

rsyslogを再起動して少し待つと、
今回のサンプルでは、

/var/log/<ESXiのホスト名>

ディレクトリに

「プログラム名_年_月_日.log」 というログファイルができます。

[root@oel62 esxi01.local]# pwd
/var/log/esxi01.local

[root@oel62 esxi01.local]# ls
Hostd_2012_12_03.log    Vpxa_2012_12_03.log    vmkernel_2012_12_03.log

4.  ESXi側で、テストメッセージを出力します。

★テスト1

ESXi側での時刻をログに表示するため、`date` を入れています。

赤いタイムスタンプが、ESXi側でSyslog送付時にコマンドで取得したタイムスタンプです。

一方、

青いタイムスタンプが、Syslogによって出力されたタイムスタンプです。

（ESXi 側でテストメッセージを送信）

~ # esxcli system syslog mark --message="TestMsg01 `date`"

（Syslogサーバ側）
[root@oel62 esxi01.local]# ls
Hostd_2012_12_03.log  Vpxa_2012_12_03.log  mark_2012_12_03.log 

shell_2012_12_03.log  vmkernel_2012_12_03.log

 

[root@oel62 esxi01.local]# cat mark_2012_12_03.log
Dec  2 22:46:22,  TestMsg01 Sun Dec  2 22:46:20 UTC 2012

★テスト2

ログが発生した時刻ではなく、Syslogサーバが受信した時刻を出力します。

テスト1の設定ファイルの、下記（赤字）を変更ます。

 

$template TsTest1, "%timegenerated%, %msg%\n"
$template LogFileName1,"/var/log/%hostname%/%programname%_%$year%_%$month%_%$day%.log"
*.* ?LogFileName1;TsTest1

 

Syslogサーバ側でファイル編集後にrsyslogdを再起動し、
ESXi側からログ出力のテストをします。

~ # esxcli system syslog mark --message="TestMsg02 `date`"

★テスト3

受信したログを、RFC3339形式で時刻を出力します。
テスト2 とは、ログファイルの出力フォーマットがかわります。

テスト1の設定ファイルの、下記（赤字）を変更ます。

$template TsTest1, "%timegenerated:::date-rfc3339%, %msg%\n"
$template LogFileName1,"/var/log/%hostname%/%programname%_%$year%_%$month%_%$day%.log"
*.* ?LogFileName1;TsTest1

 

Syslogサーバ側でファイル編集後にrsyslogdを再起動し、
ESXi側からログ出力のテストをします。

~ # esxcli system syslog mark --message="TestMsg03 `date`"

5. 結果確認

ログファイルへの出力結果を見てみます。

[root@oel62 esxi01.local]# cat mark_2012_12_03.log
Dec  2 22:46:22,  TestMsg01 Sun Dec  2 22:46:20 UTC 2012  ★テスト1の出力
Dec  3 07:48:05,  TestMsg02 Sun Dec  2 22:48:55 UTC 2012  ★テスト2の出力
2012-12-03T07:50:11.564731+09:00,  TestMsg03 Sun Dec  2 22:51:01 UTC 2012  ★テスト3の出力

JSTで出力できました。

上記の例では、

日本時間だと、12/3 07:48

協定世界時だと、12/2 22:48

ぐらいとなっています。

TestMsg02、TestMsg03 として出力したログは、先頭のタイムスタンプが日本時間になっています。

Несколько бесплатных книг от Microsoft.

Здесь

Я при апгрейдах vCenter обычно бэкапил базу, инсталлил vCenter заново и ресторил базу. Но при апгрейде 5.0->5.1a SQL Express с восстановленной базой работать не захотел