Virtual Curios....

vSphere in a box: Visio Diagram

2009-06-28T04:44:00.000-07:00

A diagram explaining my running vSphere-4 in a box.

The sand-box contains a SAN appliance and two ESX-4 VMs on an ESX 3.5 Host.

I will post some shots of the ESX 4 build process shortly.

NetBackup Error: Watch your policies or else..

2009-06-23T23:28:00.000-07:00

I have been using Veritas NetBackup for Windows 6.5 for about 12 months and I really enjoy using it. This product is a huge package of various
interconnected components that allow you to backup every machine in your enterprise environment.

My NetBackup Topolgy Map

The machines can be located anywhere in the world, as long as you have the right plumbing in place. Even better is that there was VCB support released in 6.5.X So now I can perform LAN free, off-host, hot-backups by using VCB to mount my VMDKs and stream to tape. I can also stream to disk and it performs very well.

On a couple of physical servers, I use the NetBackup agent installed locally to backup to tape. I also have a VM that is running a backup
agent and is connected via iSCSI to an AX-150i NTFS volume used as a share by everybody in my organisation. See below.

iSCSI shared drive in Disk Management

I have performed weekly data restore tests with no problems for a long time. Today is different, I had a problem ! It looked like this...

the restore failed to recover the requested files(5)

Aaargggh. Not a good message, so I decided to delve deeper into this. The last thing I needed was this message appearing on a production resto !

The offending job has a square around it.

(This scenario could actually could be worse because the test data in this example is a female staffers WEDDING photo's. Surely a great use of expensive storage :)
So I checked Activity Monior and saw this:

24/06/2009 2:50:16 PM - begin Restore
24/06/2009 2:50:18 PM - restoring image XXXXXXX_1245225000

24/06/20092:50:18 PM - requesting resource Fibre Transport

24/06/2009 2:50:18 PM - Info nbjm(pid=2752) NBU status: 800, EMM status: Fibre Transport resources are not available
24/06/2009 2:50:18 PM - Info nbjm(pid=2752) NBU status: 800, EMM status: Fibre Transport resources are not available
24/06/2009 2:50:25 PM - connecting
24/06/2009 2:50:30 PM - connected; connect time: 00:00:0524/06/2009 2:50:30 PM - started process bptm (3004)
24/06/2009 2:50:33 PM - Critical bptm(pid=3004) image open failed: error 2060013: no more entries

So the jobs took about 15 secs to crash. Fibre Transport resources are not available? Image open failed?

I clicked on the Troubleshoot button for more info and was told to go to http://support.veritas.com/nbucode/5

Just as well there was nobody breathing down my neck to get this fixed, there were 42+ pages on this error, so being a believer in
persistence, I then decided to try a restore from last night, and it worked.

So I compared the successful and unsuccesful logs and noticed differences.

24/06/2009 3:39:23 PM - begin Restore

24/06/2009 3:39:26 PM - 1 images required

24/06/2009 3:39:26 PM - media VDLY04 required

24/06/2009 3:39:31 PM - restoring image XXXX_1245743401

24/06/2009 3:39:38 PM - connecting

24/06/2009 3:39:42 PM - started process bptm (3216)24/06/2009 3:39:42 PM - mounting VDLY04

24/06/2009 3:39:43 PM - connected; connect time: 00:00:05

24/06/2009 3:39:40 PM - requesting resource VDLY04

24/06/2009 3:39:40 PM - granted resource VDLY04

24/06/2009 3:39:40 PM - granted resource IBM.ULT3580-TD4.000

24/06/2009 3:40:26 PM - mounted; mount time: 00:00:44

24/06/2009 3:40:29 PM - positioning VDLY04 to file 119

24/06/2009 3:42:59 PM - positioned VDLY04; position time: 00:02:30

24/06/2009 3:42:59 PM - begin reading

24/06/2009 3:43:16 PM - end reading; read time: 00:00:17
24/06/2009 3:43:18 PM - restored image XXXXX_1245743401 - (the requested operation was successfully completed(0)); restore time 00:03:47
24/06/2009 3:43:22 PM - end Restore; elapsed time: 00:03:59

the requested operation was successfully completed(0)

Notice the difference in the first and second lines in the logs?

The top log says:

24/06/2009 2:50:16 PM - begin Restore

24/06/2009 2:50:18 PM - restoring image XXXXXXX_1245225000

24/06/2009 2:50:18 PM - requesting resource Fibre Transport

The second log says:

24/06/2009 3:39:23 PM - begin Restore

24/06/2009 3:39:26 PM - 1 images required

24/06/2009 3:39:26 PM - media VDLY04 required

I realised that VDLY04 is a daily tape, so the image the failed job was trying to restore was from a disk. I then remembered I was experimenting with disk storage for a Policy, but I deleted the folder used for backup images last night.

Veritas could not find the images, so it exited the job. As it should.

I immediately suspended the Disk policy and let tape do all the work.
Be careful when using multiple policies and storage units for the same data.

Cheers

More vSphere in a box !

2009-06-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

I mentioned earlier that I was going to post images of my vSphere lab in a box.

I am still looking for the setup images, but here are some GUI shots of vCenter4 (which is installed on a VM called ESXLAB-VC) and a VM running ESX 4.(ESX-ONE) I am going to add another ESX 4 VM soon.

All VMs are running on an ESX 3.5 IBM xSeries with an Openfiler SAN appliance for storage. I have an ESX 4 VM below.

It is a bit confusing, having different versions of both physical and virtual ESXs co-existing. I am going to do a logical diagram in the next few days if you are interested keep checking back....

“Wanna give a VMware prezo?” Next VMware User Group (vMUG) meeting in Melbourne. July 8th 2009

2009-06-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

VMware are looking for presenters to give talks about their real world experiences and solutions for this vMUG meeting.

nwheat from http://communities.vmware.com/ stated recently “I think we're starved of real-world users talking about how they've used VMware, rather than just presos from vendors”. And right he is. Hopefully there should be some interesting tidbits for all.

Here are the details for the next VMUG meeting…..

LOCATION:

Victoria UniversityRoom

C926300 Flinders StreetMelbourne, VIC 3000

AGENDA:

3:30pm - 4:15pm Technical Overview on What’s New with vSphere (VMware)

4:15pm - 4:30pm Break

4:30pm - 5:15pm VDI - the future of server based computing (Quest)

5:15pm - 5:30pm Open Question Time

5:30pm - 6:30pm Free Discussion Forum

Are you are interested in registering for this event? If you are not a vMUG member, join today http://campaign.vmware.com/usergroup/ug-signup.php?session=Melbourne&code=1

vSphere in a box...

2009-06-23T00:37:00.000-07:00

vSphere, or sphere as we have become accustomed to calling it, has been released. I had a spare box, so I am itching to get it running. I have done what people say is madness, but we all know xtravirt have proved it is not that difficult, given the right hardware, of course.
First i installed vCenter on a new VM. Then I built two VMs running ESX 4. I probably should have used 4i, as the COS is going the way of the 2 CPU licensing model, obsolete.
I will post some pix later today of the screen shots, there are a few differences, not too much, though.

Watch this space…

Welcome

2009-06-23T00:31:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog. I have avoided this type of technology long enough, so I reluctantly downloaded some tools and away I went…
I wanted to share my virtualisation experiences that I have had using VMware VI3 and vSphere. Hopefully I can also learn a lot more by hooking up with other VMware dudes through this blog.
It wont be as good as Eric Siebert, Eric Sloof or Mike Laverick blogs, but maybe one day I can be as knowledgable as those fellows.
So enjoy !

My kit (or should that be my employers kit?)…IBM DS3400 SAN HS 21 Blade servers, EMC AX150i storage array and TS3100 Tape Library.. I love it