Hi All,

This is my first sessions in VMware vSphere 7 Training, we will be looking at How Virtualization all started and how VMware helps us achieve this.

Agenda :

What is Virtualization?

Overview Type 1 and Type 2

What is Virtualization?

Virtualization is the process of creating a software-based, or virtual, representation of something, such as

• Virtual applications
• Servers
• Storage
• Networks

It is the single most effective way to reduce IT expenses while boosting efficiency and agility for all size businesses.

Ref: https://www.vmware.com/in/solutions/virtualization.html

Different Types of Server virtualization

• Server Virtualization
• Network Virtualization
• Storage Virtualization
• Desktop Virtualizaiton

Server Virtualization

Enables multiple operating systems to run on a single physical server as highly efficient virtual machines. 
Greater IT efficiencies
Reduced operating costs
Faster workload deployment
Increased application performance
Higher server availability
Eliminated server sprawl and complexity

Network Virtualization
Network Virtualization is achieved by reproducing a physical network, network virtualization allows applications to run on a virtual network as if they were running on a physical network — but with greater operational benefits and all the hardware independencies of virtualization. Network virtualization presents logical networking devices and services

 logical ports, switches, routers, firewalls, load balancers, VPNs and more — to connected workloads.

Note the VMware product that helps in Network virtualization is called NSX-T, The Previous version was NSX-V ( My course will not cover this topic as its a different tract of certification called VCP -NV.)

Storage Virtualization

This is achieved by virtualization the storage using storage. the Physical disk is now virtual disk in the VMware the Hard disk is a file that has the os and the user data within. usually, the storage is used by EMC, NetAPP. etc.

VMware has there Hyper Converted solution called vSAN.

Desktop Virtualizaiton

These days we have a great need of working from home so Desktop virtualization has become increasingly popular. we have different solutions for this Xen Desktop from Citrix and VMware Horizon View Desktop from VMware.

This is basically streaming the desktop to the end-user using protocols like RDP, PCOVIP, and a new protocol from VMware called Blast.

VMware has a certification path for this if you are interested in Desktop mobility.

Overview of Hypervisor Type 1 and Type 2

Type 1 Hypervisor:

This hypervisor is installed directly on the bare-metal hardware. The hypervisor is a very lightweight small software which takes care of all the IO and cpu and memory instructions, it is similar to the Kernal in our Operating systems like Windows or Linux.

Type 2 Hypervisor:

This is installed on your os like Windows or Linux, hence this is also referred to a hosted hypervisor.

The performance is better with Type 1 hypervisor as it has direct access to the CPU, memory and IOS of the physical server. In Type 2 the resources are fist used with the host Operating system then left at disposal for the type two hypervisor. an example is virtual box, VMware Player and VMware Workstation for Linux VMware Fusion

Ref:https://www.vmware.com/in/solutions/virtualization.html

Hi All, today I am going to explain how we can leverage the Hot add CPU and Memory feature on a Virtual Machine. This can be a very handy feature if we are running a production environment that cannot allow downtime.

Today I am going to cover the following topics.

What is Hot Plug CPU

What is Hot Plug Memory

Perquisite to enable

How to enable the settings

What is Hot Plug CPU

Hot Plug CPU is a technique that can dynamically increase the cpu cores for a VM that supports HOT add CPU. This is however depended on the guest OS which you are running. I have found on Linux based CentOS /Red Hat any version above 6.5 supports this feature.

How can we forget Microsoft Windows Server? Dont worry any OS from 2012 above are fully supported. ( 2012 R2/ 2016 and 2019 )

What is Hot Plug Memory

Dynamically increasing the memory of a running VM is hotplug memory. this is fully supported from Linux servers Red Hat / Centos based from 6.5 and above and Windows server above 2012.

Perquisite to Enable Hot Add

1. The virtual machine has a guest operating system that supports Memory hot-add functionality.
2. The virtual machine is using hardware version 7 or later.
3. VMware Tools is installed.
4. Power off the Virtual Machine to enable hot-add.Can be scripted with

PowerCLI, can be used to enable this on a lot of VM’s to make our life easy. However, we need to power off for the settings to take effect.

A swift Google search will point you some good scripts disclaimer Please test it on a test VM before running on development or production servers.

Note the hot add feature required a full power off and on operation on VM, not a reboot. ( reboot will not work)

httpss://code.vmware.com/forums/2530/vsphere-powercli#573518

httpss://

Function Enable-vCpuAndMemHotAdd($vm){
$vmConfigSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.VirtualMachineConfigSpec
$extra1 = New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue
$extra1.Key=”mem.hotadd”
$extra1.Value=”true”
$vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += $extra1
$extra2 = New-Object VMware.Vim.optionvalue
$extra2.Key=”vcpu.hotadd”
$extra2.Value=”true”
$vmConfigSpec.extraconfig += $extra2
$vm.Extensiondata.ReconfigVM($vmConfigSpec)
}
Get-Content “c:\listofvms.txt” | %{
$vm = Get-VM -Name $_
Enable-vCpuAndMemHotAdd $vm
}

You can also find a really neet script which I like a lot on this website: virtuallythatguy.co.uk/how-to-set-vm-hot-plug-for-memory-and-cpu-vcpu-and-vmem-hot-plug-using-powercli/

Vmware Settings Expand the CPU

CPU Hot Plug

Edit Settings for the VM, expand the CPU on the CPU Hot Plug check Enable CPU Hot Add.

Hot Plug Memory

Edit Settings for the VM, expand the Memory on the Memory Hot Plug check Enable.

The limitation with Memory increase

Always remember that if the memory is under 3 GB Memory can not be increased above 4 without power off and increase to 4 GB or higher.

Hi All,

In this post i am going to take you through the steps in installing and configuring the ESX host once the installation is completed I will show you how to add it to the vCenter Server.

for the purpose of the post i have done a nested ESX installation ( which is ESX running on a VM) below you will see a quick YouTube video on the installation. dont for get to subscribe to my YouTube channel as stay tuned for new videos.

I have also taken screenshots on for the installation process. I know sometime its quick to follow the screenshots as appose to going through the video.

At this point the installation starts and you will the progress of the installation.

Thats all you can now press F2 to login to the esx using the password you have set.

You will need to setup the Network configuration to static then add it to the vCenter. If you dont have a vCenter you can deploy one on this ESX server as this is the first one.

I will be posting about how to installing vCetner server in the coming days. however if you have got a vCetner installed this is how you can quickly add the new build host to the vCenter Server.

Login to the vCenter and right click on the Cluster or the datacenter then click on Add Host

After a few seconds you will see the vSphere ESX host appering in the cluster. you can put it on Maintenance Mode if you want to do further configuration on the Host.

Hope you enjoyed by post feel free to command and let me know if you have any questions. I will love to hear back from my users.

]]>

Hi All,

Today I will take you thought the troubleshooting for vMotion using CLI, If you have not done network troubleshooting on esx host you will find some really good esxi commands on this post. And if you are using a converged infrastructure its important to understand end to end connectivity especially if you have different vlans for each service like vMotion FT, Management traffic and VM-Traffic.

I build a brand new Data Center and after configuring the dv switch I decided to test the vMotion first and this is the error I saw on the first attempt the vm was stuck at 14 % and after a while it gave the below error message.

as shown below:

Migrate virtual machine error message

If you read the above error message you will find the IP’s of the host which I am migrating from and to.

for example lets consider the below two host this troubleshooting is done on esx-02. vmnic2 is FT vmnic3 is vMotion so I am comparing the mac address of booth the host on the ucs service profile to compare tht the vnic template has the right mac address and if they are connected to the right vlan.

esx-01

vmnic2 0000:08:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:0d 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic3 0000:09:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:0c 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC

 esx-02

vmnic2 0000:08:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:19 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC

vmnic3 0000:09:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:18 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC

1. check the mac address on ucs and on the esx host for the vmnic2 ( ft) vmnic3 (vmotion)
2. check the mtu it should be 9000 although this shuld not affect but I have changed them from 1500 mtu to 9000 mtu.
3.  check the nics with mac address
   esxcfg-nics -l
4.  check the vmkernal nics
   esxcfg-vmknic -l
5.  ping from the vnic using
   # vmkping -I vmk2 192.168.242.1 this is using vmk2 interface which is for vmotion
   you will notice its failing initially because the uplink on the dv switch was first given to both the ft and vmotion nics
   I then moved the dvuplink_1 to unused as I and it was my mistake which is why it was not working agian.
6.  vmkping -I vmk2 192.168.242.1 the ping test failed again
   then I moved the dvuplink_1 in active and moved dvuplink_2 to unused and the result is

The time and date of this login have been sent to the system logs.

VMware offers supported, powerful system administration tools. Please
see www.vmware.com/go/sysadmintools for details.

The ESXi Shell can be disabled by an administrative user. See the
vSphere Security documentation for more information.
~ # esxcfg-nics
esxcfg-nics <options> [nic]
-s|–speed <speed> Set the speed of this NIC to one of 10/100/1000/10000.
Requires a NIC parameter.
-d|–duplex <duplex> Set the duplex of this NIC to one of ‘full’ or ‘half’.
Requires a NIC parameter.
-a|–auto Set speed and duplexity automatically. Requires a NIC parameter.
-l|–list Print the list of NICs and their settings.
-r|–restore Restore the nics configured speed/duplex settings (INTERNAL ONLY)
-h|–help Display this message.

~ # esxcfg-nics -l
Name PCI Driver Link Speed Duplex MAC Address MTU Description
vmnic0 0000:06:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:a3:01:14 1500 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic1 0000:07:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:1a 1500 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic10 0000:10:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:a3:01:10 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic11 0000:11:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:11 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic12 0000:12:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:a3:01:0f 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic13 0000:13:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:10 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic14 0000:14:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:a3:01:0c 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic15 0000:15:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:0f 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic2 0000:08:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:19 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic3 0000:09:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:18 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic4 0000:0a:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:a3:01:13 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic5 0000:0b:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:17 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic6 0000:0c:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:a3:01:12 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic7 0000:0d:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:16 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic8 0000:0e:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:a3:01:11 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
vmnic9 0000:0f:00.00 enic Up 20000Mbps Full xx:xx:xx:b3:01:15 9000 Cisco Systems Inc Cisco VIC Ethernet NIC
~ # esxcfg-vmknic -l
Interface Port Group/DVPort IP Family IP Address Netmask Broadcast MAC Address MTU TSO MSS Enabled Type
vmk0 Management Network IPv4 192.168.248.2 255.255.254.0 192.168.249.255 xx:xx:xx:a3:01:14 1500 65535 true STATIC
vmk1 1 IPv4 192.168.240.2 255.255.254.0 192.168.241.255 xx:xx:xx:68:7c:e3 9000 65535 true STATIC
vmk3 1 IPv4 192.168.237.2 255.255.255.0 192.168.237.255 xx:xx:xx:67:0d:34 1500 65535 true STATIC
vmk4 1 IPv4 192.168.245.2 255.255.255.0 192.168.245.255 xx:xx:xx:68:07:a0 1500 65535 true STATIC
vmk5 1 IPv4 192.168.244.2 255.255.255.0 192.168.244.255 xx:xx:xx:62:60:66 1500 65535 true STATIC
vmk6 129 IPv4 192.168.245.102 255.255.255.0 192.168.245.255 xx:xx:xx:64:9c:a8 1500 65535 true STATIC
vmk7 129 IPv4 192.168.244.102 255.255.255.0 192.168.244.255 xx:xx:xx:65:b6:41 1500 65535 true STATIC
vmk2 129 IPv4 192.168.242.2 255.255.254.0 192.168.243.255 xx:xx:xx:65:ff:87 9000 65535 true STATIC

~ # vmkping -I vmk2 192.168.242.1 –  [ping to the esx-01 failed]
PING 192.168.242.1 (192.168.242.1): 56 data bytes

— 192.168.242.1 ping statistics —
3 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
~ # vmkping -I vmk2 192.168.242.2   – [ this is the same host I am troubleshooting so its ping is ok.]
PING 192.168.242.2 (192.168.242.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.242.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.081 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.242.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.027 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.242.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.055 ms

— 192.168.242.2 ping statistics —
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.027/0.054/0.081 ms
~ #
~ # vmkping -I vmk1 192.168.242.2 [  vmk1 is the vmkernal port of FaultTolarant so it will not ping as its on a different subnet and vlan]
PING 192.168.242.2 (192.168.242.2): 56 data bytes

— 192.168.242.2 ping statistics —
2 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

~ # vmkping -I vmk1 192.168.240.2
PING 192.168.240.2 (192.168.240.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.240.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.084 ms

— 192.168.240.2 ping statistics —
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.039/0.062/0.084 ms
~ # vmkping -I vmk1 192.168.240.1
PING 192.168.240.1 (192.168.240.1): 56 data bytes

— 192.168.240.1 ping statistics —
2 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

Now it is clear that the MAC and NIC are presented correct from UCS service profile and we have verified the MAC address and pinging from the vmkernal ports proofs that its is still not working.

I have check that they vnic template is connected to the right vlan on ucs. So next thing I have done is check the dvport group and I found that I had two uplinks on active which was wrong as one uplink is only for FT which has vlan 20and the other uplink is for vMotion which is on 21 vlan.

So, I have moved the dvuplink2 to unused as its for FT. on the dvport group which is for vMotion as shown below:

— 192.168.242.2 ping statistics —

3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.040/0.061/0.088 ms
~ # vmkping -I vmk2 192.168.242.1
PING 192.168.242.1 (192.168.242.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.242.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.428 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.242.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.197 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.242.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.219 ms

— 192.168.242.1 ping statistics —

3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.197/0.281/0.428 ms

I will  be disscussing VMware and Hyper-V Technologies and theire benifites over one and outher in detail in my next post.

 www.f5.com/solutions/resources/white-papers/