VMware VirtualCenter Server service does not start automatically after reboot

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Thomas Maurer

We had a problem with our VMware VirtualCenter Server service which did not start automatically after a server reboot. This could be a problem when the VMware VirtualCenter Server service starts before the MSSQL Server.

Now the solution to solve this problem is to add a dependency to the VMware VirtualCenter Server service.

The VirtualCenter Server service is dependent on the following services:

SQL Services
ADAM Services (when using linked mode in vCenter Server 4.x)

How to create a service dependency:

Open the services.msc
Check out the name of the service you want to add as dependency
open the Registry Editor (regedit)
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vpxd
Double-click the DependOnService key and add the Service name using the name of the Service in our case MSSQLSERVER
In the Services window, open the service properties for the service VMware VirtualCenter Server.
In the Dependencies tab, verify the VMware VirtualCenter service is listed as depending on the service.

In Windows Server 2008 or later you could also set VMware VirtualCenter Server service to startup type Automatic (Delay):

Click Start > Run, type services.msc, and click OK.
Right-click on the VMware VirtualCenter Server service and click Properties.
Change the startup type from Automatic to Automatic (Delay).

More Information on this: VMware KB

Cisco UCS Release 2.0

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Thomas Maurer

This monday Cisco released the the UCS Software 2.0, which brings a lot of bug fixes and important features. This major software release brings a new drivers, BIOS, software and firmware.

New Hardware Features in Release 2.0(1)

Cisco UCS 6248 Fabric interconnect
Cisco 2208 IO Module
2500 Watt DC Power Supply for the Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis

New Software Features in Release 2.0(1)

Licensing – Updated information for new UCS hardware.
Firmware Bundle Option – Enables you to select a bundle instead of a version when updating firmware using the Cisco UCS Manager GUI.
Disk Drive Monitoring Support – Support for disk drive monitoring on certain blade servers and a specific LSI storage controller firmware level.
iSCSI Boot – iSCSI boot enables a server to boot its operating system from an iSCSI target machine located remotely over a network.
Pre-login Banner – Displays user-defined banner text prior to login when a user logs into Cisco UCS Manager using the GUI or CLI.
Unified Ports – Unified ports are ports on the 6200 series fabric interconnect that can be configured to carry either Ethernet or Fibre Channel traffic.
Upstream Disjoint Layer-2 Networks – Enables you to configure Cisco UCS to communicate with upstream disjoint layer-2 networks.
Virtual Interfaces – The number of vNICs and vHBAs configurable for a service profile is determined by adapter capability and the amount of virtual interface (VIF) namespace available on the adapter.
VM-FEX Integration for VMware – Cisco Virtual Machine Fabric Extender (VM-FEX) for VMware provides management integration and network communication between Cisco UCS Manager and VMware vCenter. In previous releases, this functionality was known as VN-Link in Hardware.
VM-FEX Integration for KVM (Red Hat Linux) – Cisco Virtual Machine Fabric Extender (VM-FEX) for VMware provides external switching for virtual machines running on a KVM Linux-based hypervisor in a Cisco UCS instance.

More Information about the Cisco UCS Software 2.0 release

Windows 8: Client Hyper-V and boot from VHD

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Thomas Maurer

Some days before the BUILD conference, Microsoft released a video about Hyper-V in Windows 8. Now after some days of testing I am already a big fan of the client Hyper-V. It lets me create a perfect lab at work or a development VM and Linux VM’s for KTSI.

It’s a great solution for me. Sure there were other solutions like Virtual PC, Virtual Box and VMware Workstation before, but using the built-in Hyper-V has some advantages which make my life a little easier.

PowerShell support – it lets me start up a whole lab environment within seconds. I can really quick import Virtual Machines and start them up. And also do some other cool scripted solutions.
Performance – it offers great performance.
VHD and VHDX – it’s great to work with one virtual disk format and not have to convert virtual disks. It’s also great together with the boot from VHD feature.
Dynamic Memory
Remote Management for Hyper-V Servers (like the RSAT)
Live Storage Migration – Move a running Virtual Machine from local disk to another local disk, USB or network share and back

Microsoft made also the boot from VHD feature a little simpler.

First Mount the VHD you want to boot. (right click on the VHD and “Mount”)
Now check the new drive letter of the VHD in my case this is G:
Open the command prompt and type bcdboot G:\windows
Now your VHD will appear in the boot menu. You can check that by typing bcdedit
and as you can see no sysprep or generalize needed

Here a small list of Hyper-V client features:

32 Virtual CPUs
NUMA in VM
512 GB RAM
Sleep, Hibernate
Management console
Manage Hyper-V Server from this console
Snapshots
Up to 1024 running VM’s
VHD, and VHDX (up to 16TB)
Dynamic disks, Differencing disks, pass through disks, fixedsize disks
4K sector size
DMTF comliant WMI
Networking offloads
Live Storage Migration
Native VHD boot
Dynamic Memory
Remote Management
PowerShell
Export snapshots
Resource Pools
External, Internal and Private Networks
Bi-Direction audio
Enlightened IDE & SCSI controllers
Hyper-V on SMB
up to256 virtual drives
up to 12 virtual NICs
VLAN support
3D Graphics (Software)
Mutli Touch
USB redirection (with RDP)
Wireless NICs
Export & Import VMs
Hyper-V Extensible Switch
VHDX Resiliency

Supported Operating Systems:

Windows XP SP3
Windows Server 2003 SP2
Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2
Windows Vista
Windows Server 2008
Windows 7
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Storage Server 2008 R2
Windows Home Server 2011
Windows SBS 2011
Windows 8
Windows Server 8
CentOS 5.2-5.6
CentOS 6.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2-5.6, 6.0, 6.1
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, 11

In my opinion Client Hyper-V is a great solution and lab to go for Developers, IT Pros, Testers, Sales people and a lot more.

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 RC released

Posted on September 10, 2011 by Thomas Maurer

Two days ago Microsoft released the Release Candidate of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012. First thing, you can now Upgrade from SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1 to the Release Candidate and you will be able to upgrade to the RTM version from SCVMM 2012 RC or SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1.

Download: EXE
Download: VHD

The Release Candidate brings a lot of changes and new features.

Feature Summary:

Fabric Management
- Setup Upgrade
  - *New in RC -Upgrade- Setup will support the following upgrade paths:
    - VMM 2008 R2 SP1 –SC VMM 2012 RC — SC VMM 2012 RTM
    - SC VMM 2012 RC — SC VMM 2012 RTM
- Hyper-V and Cluster Lifecycle Management – Deploy Hyper-V to bare metal
  server, create Hyper-V clusters, orchestrate patching of a Hyper-V Cluster
  - *New in RC:
    - ISO or CD-based OSD for environments with DHCP without WDS
    - OSD will now convert dynamic to fixed type of VHD destination
    - All network adapters on host can be configured during
      provisioning
  - *New in RC:
    - Ability to bypass cluster validation during cluster creation
    - Run cluster validation reports on-demand
    - New Cluster status tab to view an aggregated status and a cluster validation
      report
    - Ability to see current CSV owner in the properties of the
      cluster
- Third Party Virtualization Platforms – Add and Manage Citrix XenServer and
  VMware ESX Hosts and Clusters
- Network Management – Manage IP Address Pools, MAC Address Pools and Load
  Balancers
  - *New in RC:
    - Simplification of the logical networks in the Fabric workspace
    - Ability to see IP addresses that are in use from a IP pool
    - Added support for Microsoft Network Load Balancer
    - Gateway and DNS are no longer mandatory fields for logical networks
    - Load balancer can now support affinity to logical
      networks
- Storage Management – Classify Storage, Manage Storage Pools and LUNs
  - *New in RC
    - Create persistent sessions to iSCSI array and logon initiator to array
    - Better scalability of storage operations – LUN create, snapshot, clone,
      masking, and unmasking
    - Option to create storage groups per cluster (BETA only supported creation of
      storage group per node in a cluster)
    - Enablement of MPIO feature when provisioning a new Hyper-V server
    - Automatic MPIO device claim
    - Support for arrays that implement OnePortPerView
- Update Management- Keep your VMM Fabric Servers (VMM roles, hosts, and
  clusters) up-to-date with patches.
  - *New in RC:
    - Share a WSUS root server between System Center Configuration Manager 2007
      R2/ System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Beta
    - Hyper-V Cluster Orchestration- Nodes put into VMM Maintenance Mode can be
      set to trigger Maintenance Mode in Operations Manager.
- Resource Optimization
  - Dynamic Optimization – proactively balance the load of VMs across a
    cluster
  - Power Optimization – schedule power savings to use the right number of hosts
    to run your workloads – power the rest off until they are needed.
    - *New in RC:
      - Set Operations Manager Mode for powered down hosts
  - PRO – integrate with System Center Operations Manager to respond to
    application-level performance monitors.
    - *New in RC:
      - Support added for System Center Operations Manager 2012 Beta
      - VMM will ship two sample PRO Packs: Cluster scale out and Service scale out
        MPs
Cloud Management
- Abstract server, network and storage resources into private clouds
- Delegate access to private clouds with control of capacity, capabilities and
  user quotas
- Enable self-service usage for application administrator to author, deploy,
  manage and decommission applications in the private cloud
Service Lifecycle Management

Define service templates to create sets of connected virtual machines, OS
images and application packages
- *New in RC:
  - Service Designer and Specialization UI enhancements
  - Added ability to use Service Template Patterns
Compose operating system images and applications during service deployment
- *New in RC:
  - IP-based provisioning
  - New application instance view
Scale out the number of virtual machines in a service
Service performance and health monitoring integrated with System Center
Operations Manager
Decouple OS image and application updates through image-based servicing
- *New in RC:
  - Streamlined ability to enable OS VHD updates to a Service Template
  - Publish updated Service Templates in order to update Service
    Instances
Leverage powerful application virtualization technologies such as Server
App-V

Don’t get stuck in the IT past

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Thomas Maurer

Watch what happens when you try to buy a cloud solution from the wrong company.

Microsoft pokes fun at VMware with “VMlimited man“.

Enable SSH on ESXi 5 via vSphere Client

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Thomas Maurer

In the first post I wrote how you can enable SSH on the ESXi 5.0 host. In this post I show you how you can enable or activate SSH on the ESXi 5.0 hosts via the vSphere Client.

First start the vSphere Client
Select the ESXi host in the configurations tab
Select Security Profile
Click on Properties in the upper right corner and you will get the a popup with all the services on this ESXi 5.0 hosts. Select the SSH service and press the Options button.
Now you can start the services and set the startup options
press okay and you are done..