Eric Siebert

Restoring individual files from image-level backups of virtual machines

Virtual environments can change the way you back up your servers by providing an additional backup method where you back up the single large virtual disk file instead of the individual files inside the VM operating system. There is sometimes confusion, however, when using this method as if individual file restores are possible and how difficult it might be to restore them back to a VM.

There are two methods for backing up a VM, traditional backup methods that install an agent inside the OS and back it up file-by-file and image-level backups that back up the single virtual disk VMDK file. Image-level backups are usually done by backup applications that are designed to specifically back up virtual machines, like Veeam Backup and Replication. These applications use the snapshot feature that is built in to VMware to stop disk writes to the virtual disk so it can be safely backed up. Backup applications read the original virtual disk file which is now read-only as new disk writes get written to a newly created delta virtual disk file. Once the backup application has read all the blocks from the original virtual disk file the snapshot is committed, which takes the data from the delta virtual disk and writes it to the original virtual disk. Once this is complete the delta virtual disk is deleted.

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What are IP Pools and vApps?

While navigating in the vSphere client the other day I noticed a new tab. When selecting a Datacenter object, a tab called IP Pools appeared. When clicking on this tab you had the option to view and add IP Pools. Having never seen this before my first thought was, what are IP Pools?

After doing some research I found out they were part of the new vApps feature in vSphere. I’ve heard a little about vApps but never looked at them in depth, so I thought I would take the time to research them and write about them.

We’ll come back to IP Pools in a bit. First we’ll cover what a vApp is and how they work in vSphere. VMware’s definition of a vApp is below: Continued »

I/O bottlenecks in virtual environments

I saw in a poll taken for a recent SearchServerVirtualization.com article that input/output, or I/O bottlenecks are the number one challenge for VMware users. This didn’t really surprise me because I/O bottlenecks are sometimes not that obvious and can be difficult to find and troubleshoot. Why is that? Because most users don’t understand how to look for them or how to interpret the data that is presented to them from monitoring utilities that would indicate a bottleneck. Some of the most common causes of I/O bottlenecks are improperly architected/configured hosts and network/storage devices, too many high disk I/O VM’s on a single host or LUN and excessive use of vSMP. Continued »

What is virtualization?

If you work with virtualization for a living, inevitably you’ll be asked what virtualization is. Trying to explain it to someone who doesn’t work with computers can often be challenging, and after you explain it they still may not know what it’s about.

So how do you explain it to someone for the first time? I find that using analogies that anyone can relate to is a good way to explain things to people. Before I attempt a virtualization analogy I’ll try explaining it in basic computer terms. Continued »

Removing old hardware after a P2V conversion

A recent VMware KB article reminded me of a best practice I have been preaching for years that involves cleaning up old server hardware on a virtual machine (VM) after doing physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversions. When you perform a P2V conversion you are taking the operating system and encapsulating it inside a virtual machine. When you power it up on a virtual host afterwards the operating system wakes up and finds out it’s in a different home that has different server hardware and consequently proceeds to automatically load the correct drivers for all the new server hardware. Once that process is completed you typically need to reboot so all the new drivers can be loaded properly. If you go in to the device manager you will see all the new hardware devices, but you won’t see the old hardware devices. The reason for this is not because Windows deletes them — it simply hides them so you can’t see them. Continued »

Are you taking advantage of VMware knowledge on the Web?

Not too long ago I saw a tweet from fellow virtualization blogger Gabe Van Zanten that said the following:

“Today 10ppl on vSphere course all very knowledgeable & working @ VMware partners though none of them knew about any of our blogs Reality check :-)”

It really surprised me that people who are really into VMware virtualization wouldn’t look to the Internet for information on technology that they use everyday. After all, what you know and learn is generally limited to what you read about and what you experience, both of which can be constrained based on the amount of time that you have to do them. Imagine multiplying that with very little effort simply by reading and benefiting from other peoples knowledge and experiences. Instead of spending hours or days trying to learn the intricacies behind VMware’s High Availability feature why not instead spend minutes learning from someone else who took the time to do so. It’s almost impossible to be an expert at every little thing when it comes to virtualization, some guys focus on storage, others on networking and so on. Learning from others is a great and easy way to expand your knowledge. It’s all about working smarter instead of harder.

Which brings me to the point of this post — VMware has an incredibly rich ecosystem of bloggers, authors and evangelists that write about their experiences with VMware technology everyday. To ignore this vast stream of valuable information is like walking through a gold mine and not picking up gold nuggets that lay on the ground. You’ll find information and tips on blogs that you will never find in any class or documentation. There are so many blogs I have a hard time keeping up with them myself, so I made it easy for anyone to find them all by creating my vLaunchpad where I maintain them all, including the top 20 blogs.

So here’s my challenge to you. If you’re reading this post you most likely know about VMware blogs and websites, why not help get the word out to others who may not know by taking the time and spreading the word? I see the same lack of awareness at local VMUG events; people are ignorant to all the great information available on the internet. I made a presentation at two of them that was all about resources for learning VMware where I highlighted all the great blogs and websites that are available.

Why not take your game to the next level and learn from masters like Chad Sakac, Duncan Epping and Scott Lowe. There is a lot of great information available out there and it can be yours with very little effort and no cost. If you’re serious about virtualization there’s simply no excuse for ignoring some of the best information available. If you want to make it even easier, check out Planet V12n.

Virtualizing Lotus Domino servers: Support concerns

A reader recently sent me an email after reading some of my articles on SearchDomino.com on virtualizing Domino servers. He was wondering what IBM’s official stance is on virtualizing Domino servers in VMware.

Here’s the back story: He has a pretty nice existing VMware environment consisting of 18 version 3.5 hosts connected to a Cisco Fibre Channel fabric and EMC Clariion CX3-80 and CX4-480 storage arrays. Despite having a beefy, established VMware infrastructure, his organization is preparing to spend a good deal of money on new physical servers for a Domino upgrade to version 8.x. The reason for this is that the Domino administrators have told management that Lotus will not support a virtualized Domino environment. The person who wrote to me is trying to convince them to at least virtualize part of the Domino environment using their existing ESX hosts to save money. Continued »

Three new free administration tools from Vizioncore

Free administration tools can really make a VMware administrator’s life easier, so when I heard that Vizioncore recently announced some free administration tools I thought I would check them out. The three tools are vConverter SC, a physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V) conversion tool; vControl, a multi-hypervisor workflow-based management console; and vOptimizer Wastefinder, a disk space and alignment reporting tool.

The first tool, vConverter SC (SC stands for server consolidation) is based on the full version of vConverter but lacks the continuous protection feature (recurring P2V replication) of the full version. VConverter SC is a powerful tool that rivals VMware Converter but has some additional features, better speed, and support for all hypervisors including Xen, Hyper-V and Virtual Iron.

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The process behind judging the Best of VMworld awards

I wanted to comment on some recent controversy concerning the Best of VMworld award winners by explaining in detail the process and how the judges decide winners for each category. I’ve been a judge for two years now so I know how challenging it can sometimes be to pick the winners.

Let me begin by explaining what we are not doing when judging products. We are not installing each product and testing them out to determine a winner, that’s not what the awards are about. So we are not installing product A in a lab and seeing how it performs against product B to try and determine which product is better. In fact in many cases product A may do something completely different from product B and a direct comparison is not possible. In the hardware category for example the winner was the Cisco UCS and one of the finalists was the Xsigo I/O Director, two very different products that aren’t directly comparable to each other. Continued »

VMworld, so much to do, so little time

Either someone needs to invent a time machine or VMware needs to make VMworld a two week show. There is just way too much to do at VMworld and not near enough time to do it.

Sleep is always the last thing on my priority list at VMworld; I was lucky to get about five hours each night. There were just so many people I wanted to talk to and spend more time with and so little time to do it in. Trying to fit everything into your schedule is a near impossible challenge and is comparable to the ESX CPU scheduler trying to handle a host full of busy vSMP virtual machines. This is the biggest complaint I hear from attendees each year, too much to do and not enough time to do it in. But now that the dust has settled, it’s time to digest everything from the show and check out the sessions once they are posted on the VMworld.com website. The sessions are supposed to be posted September 14 for attendees only, however there are 17 online-only sessions that are already posted and are viewable by anyone. Continued »