Archive for the ‘KB’ Category

This week I have been working on a whitepaper covering how to covert a VirtualCenter Access Database (MDB) into a SQL database.

The whitepaper isn’t quite ready and is undergoing community testing. I found these articles useful on MDB management generally

1426 – Compacting Your VirtualCenter MS Access Database
1747 – Migrating an Access Database to MS SQL Server 2000

Unrelated to this conversion I stumbled across this issue… A lot of people ask once you have created a template in VirtualCenter, is possible to resize it when you clone or deploy a new virtual machine. The answer unfortunately is no – you still have to resort the Service Console and vmkfstools. This KB explains this limitation currently

1536 – Resizing Virtual Disks on Virtual Machines Deployed by VirtualCenter

These bundle came out from developing the Virtual Infrastructure II course.

1573 – Recommended Microsoft NLB Mode for VMotion
1556 – Microsoft NLB Not Working Properly in Unicast Mode
1631 – W2K3 SMP Virtual Machines with Vlance Adapter Lose Network Connectivity
1437 – AMD PCNet Windows Driver Security Vulnerabilites
1179 - Networking error, IP address already assigned to another adapter
977 – Getting a DHCP Address in a Red Hat Linux 9.0 or Advanced Server Virtual Machine
1014 – Windows Virtual Machine Blue Screens When I Use SAN LUNs
1081 – HP Proliant and Compaq MPS Table BIOS Settings for ESX Server
2030 – Using crontab to Schedule vmsnap Backups
1365 - Collecting Debug Information for VMware VirtualCenter Problems
1702 – Slow Inbound Network Performance with Citrix Metaframe Presentation Server/Citrix License Server in a Virtual Machine

1993 – Migrations with VMotion Prevented Due to SSE3 Mismatch in Processors
1987 – Virtual Machines Won’t Start on an ESX Server System After Root Partition Is Filled
1971 – Losing Configuration Information from Template to Deployed Virtual Machine

More interesting – this week VMware released a cluster of KB articles centred around this issue of VMotion and its compatibility with different CPU Families and Vendors. These articles have been kicking around for a while – but they have been update to include information on the dual-cores – both from AMD J and Intel L 

1991 – VMotion CPU Compatibility Requirements for Intel Processors
1992 – VMotion CPU Compatibility Requirements for AMD Processors
1993 – Migrations with VMotion Prevented Due to SSE3 Mismatch in Processors

Here’s a round up of my favourite KB articles of the week: 

1420 – Clock in a Linux Guest Runs More Slowly or Quickly Than Real Time 
1852 – Boot Option Update for Dual-Core AMD Opteron Systems
1925 – Setting Performance Intervals to Less Than a Past Day
1267 – Setting Maximum Queue Depth for the QLogic qla2x00 Adapter
1269 – Number of Virtual Machines That Can Share a VMFS-2 Volume Concurrently with ESX Server 2.x 
888794 – Things to consider when a W2K or W2K3 domain controller runs in a virtual hosting environment 

Here’s a collection of Links from VMware World in Las Vegas – 2005

• VMworld Announcement FAQ – VMware ESX Server 3 and VirtualCenter 2
  
• VMware Unveils Next Generation of Industry-Leading Data Center Products: ESX Server 3 and VirtualCenter 2
  
• VMworld 2005 Conference Sessions Overview
  
• VMTN Blog – Join the Conversation on Virtualization
  
• White Paper: NSI Double Take and VMware (pdf)
  
• White Paper: IBM Total Storage Enterprise Storage Server Flashcopy Function & VMware (pdf)
  
•  White Paper: Running Exchange Server in a Virtual Machine using VMware ESX Server (pdf)
  

P2V Clone of Windows NT 4.0 fails with Security Update MS04-011 

Changing VMware Web Service Options After Installation 

Verifying VirtualCenter Web Service Installation 

A couple of weeks ago I went to the London User Group meeting – there were the usual suspects from VMware and presentations from David Bieneman, CEO of VizonCore and from a Shawna Holcombe from MetiLinx. There was also an overview of the new KB articles in the VMware Knowledge Base articles. Pick up one day! 1890 – Limited Disk Throughput from Windows with BusLogic Adapter Causes Performance Problems
1882 – VM Does Not Power On When It Has an Disk with Raw Device Mapping and IBM Director Is Running
1883 – VirtualCenter Performance Graphs Display Gaps in Data After Customizing Performance Intervals 

To see a list of the newest KB articles click or bookmark this link 

Yes, like me – you prefer interesting KB articles to the latest Dan Brown or John Irving. This article describes how to lower the vMotion compatibility settings – to allow vMotion between two ESX server that don’t share the same CPU Processor Family. This does increase the chance of failure – so proceed with caution

Link:

http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1377