The Leadership Summit

Are you ready for the Leadership Summit this week!  If you have not already made plans, there’s still time!  Click the image above for details, and instructions on how to register.  You definitely don’t want to miss it!

Here’s a highlight from 2007…

New Jeep!

OK, so it’s still my old jeep (‘93 Jeep Wrangler), but it sure feels new!  My brother bought it brand new in ‘93, and I bought it from him five years ago when he and his family were heading over seas.  I replaced the the top when I got it, and after five years, it’s time to replace the top again.  I’ve doctored it for the past year trying to keep the seams from coming apart.  I think five years is pretty good for a soft top though.

So I decided it was time for a new top before I started to really get wet during a rain storm.  I chose to go back to the factory color (black) but with tented windows.  Check it out!

New top & tire cover, new radiator, new water pump, new thermostat, new gas lines, new engine head (about 30k miles ago).  Tires, breaks, clutch all less than five years old. I think I’m good for a while!

Click Photo to enlarge.

Backing up VM files from ESXi

If you’re like me, then you have a separate, backup copy of your images and VM files so that if something happens to your VMware Server/ESXi Server or your storage of choice where your production vm files are stored, you can quickly move them from your backup location to a new vm server while you work to get the problem resolved.  This was pretty straight forward with VMware Server.  You go to your vm server, browse to the files where the “Virtual Machines” are stored, and copy them to a backup location (completely seperate from your production storage device, i.e. SAN, NAS, DAS, or local RAID storage).

This has changed in ESXi because you can’t log into your ESXi server (like you would a windows machine).  So, how do you get to the files?  There’s probably a number of different ways, but the way that I found is to use… VMware Converter!

Just like you used VMware Converter to move your VM files from the VMware Server to the ESX Server, you can also take your VMware ESXi files and move them to a network share (or your desktop) using VMware Converter.  You then have VM files that you could easily move to another VMware Server, or use VMware Converter to move them to another ESXi Server should something happen to your production server/storage.

With the full VI3, your options are available through the VMotion, HA, and other technologies available for virtually no-down-time moves from one physical server to another.  But, you don’t get that free with ESXi. 

More on ESXi…

Just an update on the ESXi Server I installed yesterday.  I currently am running three VM’s on it:  Intranet, SpiceWorks Server, and our Certificate Authority Server.  Things are working great!  I really like the Virtual Infrastructure Client.  If you are using ESX (the paid version), then you are already using this.

I mentioned in my post yesterday that there’s not a “VM Guest Management Console” at the server.  To add, delete, and/or otherwise manage virtual machines, you do it from the VI Client.  The ESXi Server has a 32mb foot print, so there are primarily just a few configuration settings.  Here are a few screen shots that I snapped with  my phone.  This is everything you see at the Server.  Click the pics for a larger view…

WSUS as a Virtual Machine?

Anyone running Microsoft’s WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) as a Virtual Server.  I was leaning toward physical during early planning, but now more toward virtual.  I found this forum with network environments much larger than we are saying they are running it without any trouble.

http://communities.vmware.com/message/984973;jsessionid=F04F8B9AA07A905E5DA37E497D0796FC

What are your thoughts?

Virtualization Forum 2008 – Information

I wasn’t able to make it to Atlanta this week for the Virtualization Forum 2008, but here’s an email I received with downloadable presentations, etc. Click the image below for the online version…

Funny…

The Don’t Song…  LOL 

VMware Infrastructure 3 Demo

Here’s a good demo of VMware Infrastructure 3.  The features they go over are mostly paid features.  But, it’s a good overview of VMware Virtualization if you are not familiar with VMware (or would like to see more of the paid features).

ESXi Successfully Installed!

I’m very happy to say that I have successfully installed ESXi.  So far, so good.  Here are the specs for the test server…

• Dell PowerEdge 2850

• Dual Xeon 3.0 Ghz processors

• 4 GB RAM

• Local Storage (5 disks in a RAID 5 with 1 hot spare = 260 GB storage)

• Dual Intel NIC’s
  

I downloaded the ISO image from VMware’s website.  Upon installation, I proceeded to configure the ESX Server.  I first changed the “root” password.  I then changed my IP settings from DHCP to Static (including DNS settings, I manually added a host in DNS to point to the new server).  Once this was complete, I tested the Network Configurations and all tests passed.

ESXi does not have any type of “console management” to manage virtual machines at the server.  What I had to do was from my workstation, open a web page and browse to https://esx_server_name.  There I found a link to download the Virtual Infrastructure Client.  Once I installed the client, I was then able to log into my new ESXi server.  I used “root” for the user name, and the password I changed earlier.

So from there, I browsed through the VI Client, very cool.  Now it was time to move a server to the test ESXi server.  I like to use our Intranet server for these tests since it’s something that could be down temporarily if something happened.  Being that I have only used VMware server, I was used to moving the virtual files to another VMware server, and then clicking “File / Open” and browsing to the location.  Not the case with ESXi.  I thought  maybe I needed to import, but you can only import a Virtual Appliance.  OK, now what?  After a quick Google search, I found that what I needed to do is to download VMware Converter. I chose the VMware Server files as the source, and the new ESXi server as the Destination.

And that’s where I am…  I just checked and in less than 15 minutes, the conversion has finished moving the virtual server (20 GB in size) to the new ESXi Server.

Now it’s time to boot the converted Virtual Server on the ESXi Server and see how it works… So far so good.

Here a few other screen shots of the new ESXi from the VI Client. I’ll keep you updated as I continue to test it. If all goes well, I will be upgrading one of our main VMware Servers soon! 

More Screen Shots:

Console popped up in a new window.

Very cool and exciting. I’m looking forward to further testing, and implementing ESXi into our network!

VMware and Virtualization

I’m getting ready to download this Free VMware Hypervisor to start testing it this week! If you are not working with virtualization, I highly recommend you download either VMware ESXi, or VMware Server (which runs on top of Windows).

I was able to see VMware first hand with many of our Church IT friends at the Church IT – SharePoint Training in January 2008.  Let me share what virtualization has done for me, in less than 8 months.

When I came on board with Savannah Christian in August of 2005, we had two servers. Our TeleVantage Server (telephone system which I highly recommend!), and our everything else server. 

In the summer of 2007, we hired Ernesto, our Computer Support Specialist, which allowed me to concentrate more on the networking and management side of IT. Because of the cost of adding physical servers, we still grew at a slower pace. Since implementing VMware into our network in January of this year, our ability to add servers when and where they are needed is now possible, and easy! Here’s our server growth since 2005…

SCC Servers
Year    New   Total
2005      1        3
2006      1        4
2007      3        7
2008      14      21

Currently, we have 12 physical servers (thank you John with Kern-Coleman & Co. for donating three servers over the last 2 years), and 9 virtual servers, for a total of 21 servers. I am planning to reduce (over time) the physical servers. Converting, or rebuilding, them to virtual (where possible). Virtualization not only saves on the actual cost of physical servers, but on other cost as well; such as rack space, electricity, cooling, etc. As well as to utilize your servers resources, which could be considerably underutilized when a single physical server is purchased for a “one server” application.

As I said, if you are not using Virtualization now, I highly recommend downloading and testing it. You won’t be disappointed!