Category: Virtual
Installing VMware vCenter
Posted onConfiguring iSCSI and NFS for Windows Server and VMware
Posted onSetting up vSwitch in ESXi
Posted onUsing tape libraries under ESX 4.1 – Take 2
Posted onAfter ruling out SCSI pass-through and iSCSI, I found a link referencing PCI pass-through on ESX servers. This requires a system that supports Intel VT-d and essentially ties a PCI card to a running virtual machine. The VMware feature is called VMDirectPath I/O, and information on configuring it can be found at http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1010789 Once I […]
Using tape libraries under ESX 4.1
Posted onIn the old days of ESX 3.5, there was an unsupported feature that allowed SCSI pass-through to VMs. This allowed us to build a VM and connect our FC tape library to perform backup and restores using various backup software. This isn’t the highest performance backup/recovery solution, but it was definitily the most flexible. This […]
Reclaiming thin-provisioned disk space in VMware
Posted onMy coworker copied a bunch of VMDK files to a VM so he could import them into VMware. This process worked fine, but left his VM disks using almost their full capacity, even after the files were deleted. When attempting to SVMotion the VM (and re-thin the disks), it failed because there wasnt enough room […]
EMCWorld Virtual labs rock!
Posted onI just got done performing several virtual labs here at EMCWorld and they are great. I have been hearing about all this new technology: VPlex, VBlock, VNX, UIM, and so on, but havnt had a chance to try any hands-on activities to feel the technology.I just provisioned storage across the country, deployed enterprise level VMware […]
EMCWorld – 2 days down
Posted onDay 2 at EMCworld ended with a bang. Lots of great sessions and lots of fun. So far I have seen: The future of consumer driven IT Enterprise IT growing and being as nimble as consumer technology Virtualized information world, where people no longer work on “documents” at “deskops” but work with information from anywhere […]
How much does your virtual environment cost?
Posted onMost companies are implementing some sort of virtualization today, but how much does that virtualed server cost? If you have 300 virtual machines, how much does that test/dev system cost? Or that font-end web server? And more importantly — How much would it cost to move that to a public cloud? The Accelerating the Journey […]