VMWare – Major Bug with ESX 3.5 Update 2

Hi folks, breaking news in the virtual world! Apparently ESX 3.5 Update 2 is wreaking havoc with people’s ESX servers. According to reports it is throwing “A general system error occurred: Internal Error”. This is a known problem at VMWare and there is no known fix as of yet.

 You can read more about it here.

 This goes back to a rule of thumb I always like to follow with patching. When a patch comes out, don’t apply it right away. Sit on it for awhile and adopt a wait and see approach to see if there are any ill effects experienced by others in the industry before you apply to your production systems. Also install the patch in a sandbox environment and do a flurry of tests to see if you can get it to break.

After it seems that the patch is acceptable then you can apply it to your production systems. This will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

 -RP

Packet sniffing is your best friend…

Sometimes when you are troubleshooting network issues, you just can’t seem to put your finger on the source of the problem. Whatever it is that is causing your network issue is evading you and you’re wondering how are you going to track it down.

I find using a packet sniffer to actually look at the traffic flowing on the network is helpful at this point. You will most likely have to configure your switch to mirror all traffic to one of the ports on the switch so you can plugin a laptop with a packet sniffer onto that port to monitor the traffic.

One of my favourite packet sniffers to use is Wireshark, formerly known as Ethereal. You can also use Network Monitor which comes builtin with Microsoft’s operating systems. Once you have it up and running you can watch network traffic scroll past your screen live and hopefully find the source of your problems.

-RP

Unified Messaging

Unified messaging means a lot of things to a lot of different people. To me it means the ability to communicate with people using one centralized system but with any device or means with relative ease. In this day and age, with the plethora of digital communication devices available out there today, this has become a reality.

 One of my personal favourite VOIP solutions is Asterisk. Asterisk is an open source PBX which is in my opinion the most flexible non-proprietary piece of VOIP software out there. If you haven’t heard of it, or would like ot check it out, you can get more info here. With Asterisk you can take a call anywhere at anytime and you can even get your voice mail to show up in your e-mail inbox.

One of the things that is required in Unified Messaging is instant messaging(IM). If you are running an Asterisk VOIP system, one of the good IM solutions out there is Openfire and Spark. Openfire is the server side component and Spark is the IM client that runs on your user’s desktops. This server can be easily setup and integrated with Active Directory for Single Sign On (SSO) support. Then you can install the Asterisk component that allows it to integrate with your Asterisk VOIP system! Openfire server supports the open protocol called Jabber.

 All in all this is a great solution for SMB offices that don’t want to spend too much money on a VOIP system but still require all the features of one.

 -RP

VMWare Virtual Machine Backups

I am often asked, what do we do for backups in a virtual environment? One of my favourite methods is to use a product called vRanger Pro from Vizioncore.

 Vizioncore makes a great product called vEssentials which consists of vRanger Pro, vReplicator, and vCharter Pro. The Vizioncore offering is a lot cheaper than some of the competitor offerings.

 vRanger Pro backs up the entire VM allowing you to restore it if something happens to it. vReplicator replicates the entire VM to another site for a great disaster recovery alternative and vCharter Pro provides a great solution for performance monitoring.

 You can check out their products here. Despite using these products for virtual machine backups, I would still use a normal backup product to backup the individual data inside the virtual machine so you can do granualar restoration. Virtual machine backups are more for the situation where you lose the entire VM not for when you just need to restore an individual file.

 -RP

Portable Apps

Sometimes the key to being a good consultant is having the right tools at the right time. There are a lot of tools out there, some complex and some simple and straightforward that I use on a regular basis.

One of the easiest ways to carry tools around is on a USB flash drive. There are many self contained executable programs out there that will run off of a USB flash drive enabling you to use them on the go. This is especially handy to the consultant that is always on the move.

One of the simple suites of apps I like to carry around on my USB flash drive are from PortableApps.com. There you can find a lot of nice useful apps for your flash drive.

 -RP

Citrix XenServer also Available for Free

Amongst all the hype about Hyper-V and VMWare’s ESXi 3.5, I think a lot of people tend to forget about the other offerings out there. Hyper-V is essentially free, available for a very low cost if you buy the Windows 2008 version with it on it. Frankly, I don’t know why you would buy the version without it. I certainly can’t think of a good reason. Also VMWare ESXi 3.5 is free now due to the recent announcement from VMWare. Based on this, it’s quick to get caught up in the virtualization fun since you can acquire either product quite readily.

 However, there is another alternative. You can try out Citrix XenServer Express Edition from Citrix. This is due to the latest acquisition by Citrix. The Express Edition version allows you to run 4 virtual machines for free. You can get it at this link here.

 -RP

Bare Metal Hypervisors

With Hyper-V out now, the virtualization marketing machine from all the different virtualization companies is in full swing. The battle is on and it looks like it’s going to be an ugly one. With virtualization pros on either side spouting the virtues of their product and claiming why one is better than the other.

Within the past few days I have read about a ton of cost comparisons between all the different offerings out there between Hyper-V, XenServer, and VMWare. I think at the end of the day, you need to delve a little deeper and look at the differences between the technologies that make up these products and what they mean to you and your business.

 One of the core differences that is important to me (and might not be important to you, depending on your needs) is the level/classification of hypervisor that is employed by the various companies. VMWare and Citrix both offer what are called level 1 or type 1 classification hypervisors. These are hypervisors that install on bare metal without an underlying OS. Whereas Microsoft offers Hyper-V only installed as a role on Windows 2008. This is what is called a level 2 hypervisor or type 2 classification hypervisor.

This is important because anytime you have a virtual product using a level 2 hypervisor, the hosting OS gives a larger footprint to attack and can compromise the security or stability of the box more than a level 1 hypervisor would. Now for non mission critical servers this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but for mission critical virtual machines this could be the difference between choosing which virtualization product is right for you.

However, it is said that Microsoft will be developing a level 1 hypervisor. We will have to wait and see how this progresses, because once this comes out, the lines will be even further blurred between the different competitors.

-RP

VMWare’s ESXi vs Hyper-V, the details on what free really means

I was speaking to a co-worker today and he pointed me towards Mike’s blog at http://mikedatl.typepad.com/mikedvirtualization/2008/07/esx-35i-for-fre.html. After reading through it, it was obvious he had made some really great points.

 Microsoft has offered Hyper-V for free essentially with Windows 2008 but it doesn’t include the cost of Windows 2008 itself. ESXi on the other hand is a bare metal Hyper-visor which requires no OS for it’s installation and requires no purchase of Hyper-V.

 Also, in my humble opinion, once you grow out of the SMB market and start moving up, the features of VMWare trounce what Microsoft has to offer with Hyper-V. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Microsoft will continue to develop their offering and play catch up, but VMWare is there right now at what I find a very reasonable price.

 -RP

VMWare’s Virtual Infrastructure Client in a 64 bit OS

For those of you getting into VMWare, you might try and install the VI client on your machine. If you have a 64 bit OS such as XP or Vista 64, you will get an error message saying you can’t install it because it’s only supported in a 32 bit environment.

The long and the short of it is that VMWare has made some changes to the client that might cause issues in 64 bit so the developers blocked 64 bit installations intentionally. You can still get around this however.

My personal favourite way is to just install a VM on your computer with a 32 bit OS and then run the client out of there. There are other things you can do is well and I suggest you read this link found here about the situation.

-RP

Monitoring in the Managed Services Industry

One of the key parts of any Managed Services offering is the ability to provide adequate monitoring to your clients. There are many pieces of software out there that claim they can do othe job of providing full monitoring for a Managed Services environment. These products are typically called Managed Services Platforms (MSPs).

 I’ve had the good fortune to use and try many MSPs and the one thing I have learned is that they all have their advantages. There really is no one good platform, it’s more about which platform makes the most sense for your Managed Services Business as they all have their own strengths, weaknesses, and focus.

 The key is to find a MSP that matches your offerings to your clients. The only way to do this is with a fully functional trial. When trying out software like this, your best bet is to install it in a test pilot scenario and use it as if you were supporting a real client. Give it all the same administrative attention you would give a product that you already own and are using. This way you can see how it works for you in your day to day consulting.

 Some of the more popular MSP companies out there are Kaseya, Level Platforms and N-Able.

 -RP