Well, its a new quarter and I feel a big obligation to post something to the blog. I cannot believe it has been three months since my last post. I have several irons in the fire, but on the work front, I am glad to report that the vSphere upgrade has been completed and we are performing the final stages of upgrading all our VMware tools, drivers and virtual hardware. This has been a several month long transition and I have several draft posts waiting to go out which were started as things came up during the upgrade. This project has kept me extremely busy, much to the detriment of the blog. But the project has also provided a lot of good information which I want to pass along.
On a personal note, my wife and I are in the final stages of planning our new home, which we hope to begin building in the coming months. Any free time that I would have had to blog about my experiences has been consumed with house plans, builder meetings and other items to prepare for this major undertaking. My wife is attempting to chronicle our build on her blog, My Green Glasses. The house will be a certified green home, Energy Star certified and *possibly* LEED certified. We know that we will be close to meeting requirements for a LEED certification and we are looking at what additional things need to be done to make it happen and whether it is worth it or not.
Somehow I missed posting this, but the deadline for upgrading a VCP to version 4 without needing the required course has been extended through the end of January, 2010. For any existing VCP3′s, this is a great opportunity to save the $1800 for the official course as long as you are able to pass the VCP4 test. To add icing to the cake, VMware has also extended the free retake if you do not pass on your first attempt.
Short version: To grow a VM with and RDM in virtual compatiblity mode, you must VMotion the VM after performing your storage rescans to recognize the additional space. After the VMotion, the guest OS will see the additional space and be able to access it. Read the rest of this entry »
When Apple last refreshed the Mac Mini line, it introduced a new version with Mac OS X Server preloaded that also dropped its optical drive in lieu of dual hard drives. This new configuration is quite popular according to a recent post on AppleInsider. That leads me to wonder and speculate about what could be next? I’ve speculated about a home server before…
Mac OS X Server has been incrementally growing in features and capabilities with each major release. Its market penetration and target has largely been towards Mac heavy businesses. It has packaged several new products in the last two releases to help Mac organizations reduce their dependence on Microsoft solutions – new products like iCal and Address Book server as well as a mail server, all of which are based heavily on standards which is great for interoperability across all client platforms.
But, with the introduction of the Mac Mini server, Apple has tilted the OS X Server offering more towards small businesses (who might not purchase a Mac Pro or X-Serve to run OS X Server). It also could be used for some home users — could this be the first, quiet step towards the home server for Apple? I don’t have to answer and this is purely speculation, but let me continue. Read the rest of this entry »
As in my post about Lessons Learned on ESX4 rollout, we had a pretty serious hiccup with our storage and the ESX systems in December while trying to bring up our ESX4 environment. The primary trouble uncovered was what I’ll call “controller ping-pong”.
An EVA normally has two (maybe more, I’m not primarily a storage guy) controllers and those handle all the requests received through the SAN. For every LUN, one controller is its master. Both controllers can handle requests for the LUN, but only one actually handles the access. If the controller on fabric A is the primary but the controller on fabric B is getting more requests, eventually the EVA swaps control for the LUN to fabric B — wherever the majority of requests are coming.
This behavior would only become a problem if you had hosts configured to access the LUN on different fabrics. ESX4 is ALUA (asymmetric logical unit access) aware, meaning it should automatically determine the optimal path and in the case of an EVA. The EVA, I’m told by HP support, is supposed to respond an ALUA request for the optimal path by responding with the controller that is the master over the LUN.
If you, like us, have an ESX 3.5 cluster with preferred paths setup, you should proceed with caution. The ALUA information isn’t apparently shared between clusters. And if your clusters get different optimal paths, you could end up with controller ping-pong as requests are sent down both fabrics and the volume changes between the two, resulting in more on Fabric A followed by more on Fabric B — forcing the controller to switch masters.
So, while in a migratory state, I think my safest route is to configure the ESX4 hosts to use a preferred path like the ESX3.5 cluster nodes. I hate to move from the default ESX configuration and this isn’t an official recommendation from HP support, but it certainly makes the most sense to define the paths being used (except in a failure).
I post this because I feel like there have to be other HP Storageworks customers who have the same situation or have experienced something similar. I would love to hear from you…
I have chronicled my search for a Mac money management replacement for Microsoft Money. Unfortunately, after trials and testing, I have not found a suitable Mac solution that works fully for me. So, after searching, Quicken for Windows 2010 is my new solution and so far, its working pretty well. There were a few requirements that the software needed, although, I didn’t realize what I needed when I began my search.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will be returning to my area – the Myrtle Beach area – to build a second home for a deserving family. The local builder has setup a website where you can see the needs for the build as well as other information about the family, location, etc. after ‘door knock’ next Monday. The build is set to begin on Jan 11 and reveal on Sunday, Jan 17. Check out http://www.extremehorry.com for more information and to volunteer, if you’re local.
In addition to the build, the organizers have started a canned food drive with the hopes of collecting 10 tons of food – yes, literal TONS of food. Given the state of the economy and the fact that food pantries are in need of food to distribute to families in the area, its great to see the builder using this opportunity to raise awareness and help the entire community, in addition to a family.
There is also a pep rally this morning at Coastal Carolina’s Wall Auditorium to kick off the project.
A commenter asked for an update on Moneywell and my switch to it for my primary money management platform. Alas, I have to report that its not good news. I have completely abandoned Moneywell and I haven’t launched the software in several months. Here is the update I sent to my commenter, Daniel:
Unfortunately yes, I am still using Microsoft Money – I can’t break my habits there and Moneywell, albeit nice, has some things that I just can’t get accustomed to. I really need the running totals on accounts because of the number of transactions that I post each week and missing those makes it very hard to reconcile my accounts. I think that is the key feature missing for me. I just wish there was a preference to enable that within the program. It seems like such an easy feature to add.
I notice too that Quicken is releasing an “Essentials for Mac” package with the new Financial Life, but that won’t meet my needs – particularly on the investment side. So I am still looking. I would switch to Mint.com if I were able to import my account histories. I just have so much past history in my data file that I want to keep for year to year reference and to look back – I hate to abandon it, but I fear that I’ll soon be locked out if I ever have to reinstall MS Money.
I know that I can’t be the only Mac user in the world looking for a suitable money management package. Its a market which has a bunch of new options – what are some – what are you using?
Following my November upgrade of Flex-10 VirtualConnect on my blade enclosure, I have begun my rollout and upgrades to ESX4 on a new blade cluster as well as one existing cluster. There are quite a few lessons that I’ve learned on my roll-out. Read the rest of this entry »
As of 10am today, I am officially a VCP4. I now have to wait for my official packet to arrive from VMware, but I have done the hard part and passed the exam. For any VCP3′s out there who still haven’t taken the test, there is still time to take the test without needing the official course if you take and pass the VCP4 exam before December 31. That was my major motivator – avoiding an $1,800 class. With relatively limited hands-on experience with vSphere and a little studying, I had no problems with the exam.
For anyone considering taking the exam, here is a quick list of the resources I used to study:
Areas I’d suggest focusing on – system requirements, configuration maximums, new technologies – Data Recovery, vApp, Distributed vSwitches (vmkernel and service console ports on dvSwitches), and licensing and portfolio offerings. Don’t forget some general knowledge about View, Fusion, VMware Server 2 and their other products – those are good for a quick and easy couple correct answers.
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