apaton

In Windows 2008r2 you need to configure MPIO to support the P2000. Otherwise you only get failover paths. Something like ocsetup MultipathIo /norestart mpclaim -n -i -a HTH

What storage are you using? Possibly you have expanded the storage array but not the Volume/LUN. Typically P2000/Dot Hill/Dell MD/NetApp/LSI all run volumes/LUN's on top of Arrays Group ie RAID5/RAID10, different vendors use different terms. So once you have increased the size of the Volume/LUN you typically then ask vSphere ESX to rescan the HBA (iSCSI/FC), Via Configuration/Storage Adaptors tab. You should see the size of the target LUN along with path identifiers at the bottom of the screen. Once done then follow the procedure per VMware knowlegebase guide. HTH Andy

Pro and cons is all about management for me. VMFS are easier to visualise (vcentre)/manage/backup and the performance overhead is quite minimal compared to RDM (Raw Device Maps) I always use VMFS datastores and only exceptions are in specific scenarios such as MS cluster/External Physical Host Access (non-vmware) and host controlled storage snapshots then I would use RDM. Andy

I never notice that another Putty was made available in December 2011. 0.62 Looking at the change release the security fix seems important protection from possible malware. These features are new in beta 0.62 (released 2011-12-10): Security fix: PuTTY no longer retains passwords in memory by mistake. Bug fix: Pageant now talks to both new-style clients (0.61 and above) and old-style (0.60 and below). Bug fix: PuTTY no longer prints a spurious "Access denied" message when GSSAPI authentication fails. Bug fix: PSCP and PSFTP now honour nonstandard port numbers in SSH saved sessions. Bug fix: Pageant no longer leaks a file handle when an authentication fails. Bug fix: PuTTYtel no longer crashes when saving a session. Bug fix: PuTTY now draws underlines under the underlined text instead of sometimes putting them somewhere off to the right. Bug fix: PuTTY now should not draw VT100 line drawing characters at the wrong vertical offset.

> IBM DS3400 SAN The IBM DS3400 come in iSCSI, SAS & FC options, could you confirm which model you have? Also find attached link for an IBM Redbook on the DS3400, may help. http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247065.pdf Regards Andy

Hi dgardner, I think there a slight confusion with SAN terminology. The IBM 16B-2 is re-badged Brocade 4Gb Fibre Channel SAN Switch and doesn't support iSCSI. What new storage device unit are you trying to attach your vSphere 5 hosts to ? Regards Andy

BBC webiste article on the pit falls of leases BBC News - Schools kit 'scam could cost schools millions'. I believe leases are useful, but you must beware of what your signing upto. Don't accept what a general IT sales person verbal description / terms of a leases as fact, check the small print and ask for a copy of the lease agreement. I would say most reseller use an external Finance company, ask to speak to their representative and get your questions answered from the people who know. Possible Questions to ask (I'm sure that there are many more) What happens at the end of the lease, do we own the equipment or have to send it back? If we want to keep it, what is the cost? How do we exit the lease early, what are the additional costs ? Again leases can be a good thing and more and more people are using operational budgets to provide IT services. Look at the cloud services you may be considering, many of these have similar types of issues as an IT hardware/software lease. Andy

Like the site and plus I've discovery of another Linux command for the toolbox ttyrec. I've always used script command to record cli sessions for documentation but this looks useful for demo's. Andy

I like the Dot Hill product, Iv'e been selling various Dot Hill products for over 10 years and there pretty solid performers. Plus did you know that HP OEM the Dot Hill, so a HP P2000/MSA is Dot Hill device. Andy

Didn't really want to start another thread, but yet another update is now available 2010.Q3.4.0.ak-2010.08.17.4.0 Release Notes - Fishworks - wikis.sun.com Andy

I'm sure people will not disagree with me that Putty is the de-facto SSH client on Windows. At least it is my 80x24 window to escapism. Well now we have a new version available, Putty 0.61 (beta). Amazingly its been 4 years since the last update. PuTTY Download Page Change log from the Putty Website.

Duke's right (as always) the FAS2020 is limited in performance and software features and will not go to OnTap8, also for the money (approx £12k for 12 x 450Gb SAS) there could be a better solution from another vendor. But if it does fit your requirement then maybe its good enough. Andy

The latest VSS providers do need the latest Oracle firmware (Q3.3.1). There are few bugs in the old version.

Which Storage vendor to advise/recommended ? Difficult question answer without some more details, but all these are excellent storage devices, capabilities and features and cost vary dramatically. My gut feeling would be to look at an iSCSI solution. iSCSI (with FC options depending on model) HP MSA (OEM DotHill) DotHill 3320 Dell MD3000i (OEM LSI) EMX CLARiiON AX4 NexSAN iSCSI Only (Feature Rich) Dell Equallogic HP P4000 (Lefthand) Unified Storage (Multi Protocol iSCSI/NFS/FC/CIFS + Feature Rich) EMC VNX NetApp FAS2020A Oracle ZFS Appliance (maybe not the flavor of the month for some Edugeeker's) For VMware backup Veeam is ideal, but remember you need more disk as a backup target. Andy

John, Sorry to hear about your troubles, let us know how you get on and why it broke. Andy

I'm happy add some input/content. Protocols, FC, iSCSI, CIFS and NFS SAN Fabrics, L2/L3 (1Gbe & 10Gbe) & FC Switches (2/4/8Gbit) Path Management - MultiPathing Sizing, Capacity - I/O Profile, Virtulisation/VDI/Database & Filestore. Storage Features Snapshot, Clone, Replication, Thin Provisioning.

Oracle document on "How to Configure Identity Mapping in the ZFS Storage Appliance to Work With Windows Active Directory and Solaris Identity Services" Released June 2011 http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/systems-hardware-architecture/o11-051-zffsa-idmu-mapping-405716.pdf

Oracle have release a new release Q3.3.1. I've been awaiting this one for a while. Hope to fix some outstanding VSS issues and updated VMware SRM support. More details for everyone below. ak-2010.08.17.3.1 Release Notes - Fishworks - wikis.sun.com Note from Release Notes - "This release requires appliances to be running the 2010.Q3.2.1 micro release prior to upgrading to this release"

Just some thoughts. How will the SQL2008 databses updates get transfered to the DR box? . I do see that you have EMC snapshot replication which can move data typically on a hourly basis. EMC replication is usually implemented alongside VMware's SRM. SRM is a BIG RED BUTTON solution, and not automated! Have you considered MS SQL Mirroring functionality as an alternative? SQL Mirroring can be automated if an appropriate witness server is provided. If you have high latency network links (WAN) then you should consider High Performance mode without automated failover. Andy

Not sure I do:confused:, but that could be me So could I rephrase the question as. "You would like a single VMware vSphere Client to manage vCenter controlled ESXi servers and multiple ESXi (free) standalone servers, within the same window ?" If so the answer is no. If I've gone off on a tangent just ignore me, as my brain is a little frazzled tonight. Andy

I think the answer is no, you can't add Free ESXi to vCenter. Free/unlicensed ESXi (VMware vSphere Hypervisor) can't be managed by vCenter Serve due to a licence restriction. (Management API's are closed) vCenter Server also has licence limitations, dependent on edition purchased. Essential edition of vCenter Server is to manage the Essential bundle only. Foundation edition of vCenter Server can only manage 3 ESX/ESXi hosts, but can be upgraded to Standard edition. Standard edition of vCenter Server is not licence limited. HTH Andy

VMware Data Recovery (VDR) as many of you know is VMware's own backup virtual appliance. I've used it many times and found it unreliable and lacking key features, especially in the early versions. These days I rely on Veeam. That been said VDR is free (with the correct license) so I continue to persist and have high hopes for the next big release of VDR, but until then heres a few resource from VMware to keep you going with version 1.2.1 which was released on 18th March 2011. Always run latest version of VDR. VMware Data Recovery Release Notes VMware KB: Troubleshooting VMware Data Recovery backup issues VMware KB: Troubleshooting VMware Data Recovery restore failures

Double Parity and Wide RAIDZ zpool are very poor for Random I/O. I agree by recreating a mirrored zpool and enabling write cache use will get a significant performance increase and reduced write latency. Plus look at Filesystem aliment, especially with SQL/Exchange on Windows 2003. (see http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/43403-sun-storage-7000-series-articals-blueprints-3.html#post538278) Latest firmware. Andy

After reading again. I've misunderstood a little. I assumed the 192.168.10.0 / 24 was Internet only ie off to a cable router etc thus requirement for IP COP. But seems that 192.168.10.0 is just your internal/home network. So skip what I said and go for a single NIC. Andy

Everyone is right above. But this is what I would do for a lab environment without VLANS. 1 NIC for Internet 10.x 1 NIC for Internal LAN with a vSwitch with management ports enabled. If you need to create a test network then create a dedicated vSwitch for that network with out physical NIC. If you need to route then create a Linux VM on both vSwitches to route between networks. ( Linux Router on a floppy)