In continuation to the Library VMware Icons and Diagrams posted on VIOPS recently several people have made requests for using these wonderful graphics for designing Visio documents. These are the same Graphics from the official VMware Branding Team.

20/March/08 - Small Icons now available for documentation - Small VMware Icons

Virtualization professionals that need to present documents and designs.

The Stencils have been separated into groups

1. ThinApp-Stencil- Objects for ThinApp

2. Build your Own-Stencil - Stand-alone objectsto create your own diagrams

3. VM-STencil - Objects that are related Virtual Machines

4. VMware-Stencil - General Objects for VMware

5. Products-Stencil - Diagrams and objects that are related to VMware products or technologies

1. Download the Attached Files below.

2. Extract the Stencils from both files.

3. Open Visio and open the all the Stencils.

4. Use the Stencils to create a visio diagram of your infrastructure

1. This doc on the web @ VMware Icons and Diagrams - Visio Stencils

2. Original PowerPoint Presentation with Graphics - Library VMware Icons and Diagrams.

3. Visio Stencils Bundle - 1 (zip file) for your use - Attached to this document.

4. Small VMware Icons

Stencils Created and sorted by Maish Saidel-Keesing

All Graphics are from - VMware Corporate Branding

VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2008 revenues of $1.9 billion, more than 130,000 customers and more than 22,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest-growing public software companies. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is majority-owned by EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC). For more information, visit www.vmware.com.

You use this proven practice at your discretion. VMware and the author do not guarantee any results from the use of this proven practice. This proven practice is provided on an as-is basis and is for demonstration purposes only.

These graphics have not been optimized for Visio. They are not vector-based and are not guaranteed to resize at best quality.

I thought I'd kick off my Citrix blog with a question I get pretty often from Linux enthusiasts: how to install unsupported Linux distributions on XenServer 4.1.

The most common solution people find is to use the "Other Install Media" template, insert the distribution installation CD, and find that the mouse cursor doesn't work when they boot into X11. The reason for this is that they are using the hardware-assisted emulation mode of installing Linux. In this mode (dubbed "HVM"), all input and output is emulated, and in particular the mouse interface uses the USB tablet interface. If the distribution doesn't include a driver for USB tablets, then no mouse will appear.

Windows guests run at high-speed in HVM mode due to the installation of the XenServer tools which install high-speed drivers, but these are not necessary for Linux distributions since they can be run in para-virtualized mode (dubbed "PV"). This involves obtaining a Xen-enabled PV kernel from the distribution, and modifying the VM record in XenServer to boot into this kernel instead of HVM mode. The XenServer built-in templates for popular distributions such as RHEL, CentOS or SUSE Linux already automate all this and are in PV mode from the installer onwards.

In the remainder of this post, I'll explain how to take a distribution without direct support (Ubuntu 8.04), get it installed in HVM mode on XenServer 4.1, and convert it to PV mode with a XenCenter graphical console.

• Download the "Alternative Installation CD". The main installation CD uses graphical mode, which won't install as well in HVM mode due to the use of esoteric 16-bit mode instructions for the graphics operations. The 16-bit emulation mechanisms vary between processors (with better support on AMD chips, and a software instruction emulator required on Intel VT chips). However, the Ubuntu alternate CD uses a text-based installer which works fine.

• Create a new VM on the XenServer 4.1 host using the "Windows Server 2003" template. This template is set up with a sensible set of hardware emulation flags and default disks, and so is a good base for the HVM installation of Ubuntu as well. Attach the Ubuntu ISO you just downloaded to the VM, and proceed to install Ubuntu as normal. You should install it onto the first disk, to make the subsequent steps in this guide easier.

• When the installation is finished, reboot the VM (don't forget to detach the installation ISO first). It should boot up in HVM mode into the graphical login screen. The XenCenter display will show it as not being optimized, which is fine. At this stage, I prefer to work via a remote command-line using SSH. Open up a Terminal from Ubuntu, and run "sudo apt-get install openssh-server". Then find out the VM's IP address with "ifconfig eth0", and then connect to it remotely. Alternatively, you can continue to type in the commands directly into the terminal as well.

• On the Ubuntu guest, you now need to install the latest Xen version of the Ubuntu kernel:
  • Install the Linux kernel virtual package with "sudo apt-get install linux-image-xen". This is a virtual package which pulls in the latest Xen kernel and modules, in my case 2.6.24.19.21.
  • You now need to workaround a bug in grub. Due to the switch in recent versions of Linux to work with the hypervisor-independent paravirt_ops interface, update-grub doesn't update the grub configuration with your newly installed Xen kernel. To fix this:
    • Open /boot/grub/menu.lst in your favourite editor.
    • Scroll to the bottom to the kernel list, and find the entry which looks like: title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=<uuid> ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic quiet
    • Add a new entry which is similar to this, but change all references to the 2.6.24-16-generic to the Xen kernel. In /boot I have vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-xen, so my new entry looks like: title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-19-xen root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-xen root=UUID=<uuid> ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-xen quiet
    • Also edit the default entry in the menu.lst to match the number of the kernel you just added. I set mine to 3, since it is the fourth entry in the list and the indexing starts from 0.

• When this is done, shut down the guest but do not reboot it just yet. You first need to edit the VM record for your Ubuntu VM to convert it to PV boot mode. From the control domain console of your XenServer:
  • Determine the UUID of the Ubuntu VM by using the xe CLI:
    • xe vm-list name-label=Ubuntu params=uuid --minimal : this will print out the UUID of the VM named "Ubuntu". If you are logged into the control domain, pressing the <tab> key will perform auto-completion of UUIDs in subsequent XE commands, so you don't need to keep typing it in every time!
    • xe vm-param-set uuid=<uuid> HVM-boot-policy= : this will clear the HVM boot mode from the VM.
    • xe vm-param-set uuid=<uuid> PV-bootloader=pygrub : this will switch the VM to using to the pygrub bootloader which starts the guest in PV mode by examining its filesystem for kernel.
    • vm vm-param-set uuid=<uuid> PV-args="console=tty0 xencons=tty" : this configures the kernel boot arguments to display the login console on the correct TTY, so that it shows up in the XenCenter console.
  • Next, you need to flag the root disk of the VM as bootable so that pygrub knows where to look for the PV kernel:
    • xe vm-disk-list uuid=<uuid> and look for the UUID of the VBD for the disk. VBD stands for "Virtual Block Device" and represents how to map the virtual disk into the virtual machine.
    • xe vbd-param-set uuid=<vbd uuid> bootable=true will set the root disk VBD to be bootable.

• You should be all set now! If you boot up the Ubuntu VM, it should start up in text-mode with the high-speed PV kernel. If it doesn't work due to an incorrect grub configuration, you can use the xe-edit-bootloader script in the XenServer control domain to edit the grub.conf until it works.

• The next step is to install the XenServer tools within the guest, so that metrics such as the network interface IP addresses are recorded and reported from XenCenter. To do this:
  • Due to a portability issues with the default shell in Ubuntu (dash), you will need to replace it by: sudo apt-get -y install bash && sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash. We've actually fixed this issue in future releases of XenServer, but for XenServer 4.1 you will need to use bash.
  • Attach the XenServer Tools ISO into the VM, and mount it into the guest with sudo mount /dev/xvdd /mnt
  • Install the tools with sudo dpkg -i /mnt/Linux/xe-guest-utilities_4.1.0-257_i386.deb.
  • The warnings about the VM being unoptimized should disappear, and additional information such as the IP address of the guest should appear in XenCenter.

• In order to access the Ubuntu installation via the graphical console, you need to configure it to run VNC on the external network interface. XenCenter polls the guest to see if it is listening on the VNC port 5900, and offers the option to switch to the graphical console if it finds it. I followed the excellent instructions on this forum post. To summarise them:
  • sudo apt-get install vnc4server xinetd : to install the required packages
  • Edit /etc/gdm/gdm.conf and uncomment the RemoteGreeter=/usr/lib/gdm/gdmlogin line, set the key Enable=true in the [xdcmp] section.
  • Install a new service file for xinetd into /etc/xinetd.d/Xvnc with the following contents: service Xvnc { type = UNLISTED disable = no socket_type = stream protocol = tcp wait = no user = nobody server = /usr/bin/Xvnc server_args = -inetd -query localhost -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 -cc 3 -once -SecurityTypes=none -extension XFIXES port = 5900 }
  • The major difference from the forum poster is to run it on port 5900, and not to restrict it to just localhost (since XenCenter also needs to connect to it).
  • Finally, restart the xinetd service by running sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd restart.

Once you're done with this installation, you can shut down the VM and convert it to a template. Any exports or clones will continue to run in PV mode, since the XenServer XVA export format records all of the metadata required to re-create the VM records.

Enjoy the Ubuntu on XenServer experience! Remember to report any issues you have with the in-guest packages on the Ubuntu support forums, or just give them positive feedback.

PS: many thanks to Andrew Peace and Ian Campbell for assistance. May their Linux beards remain long and uncut.

Hi Cluster Fans,

Resources can be hard to find, so every few months we will be publishing an updated list of over 300 useful documents, guides, information and utilities to this blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/).  If there is any other useful Failover Clustering or Network Load Balancing content which you feel is missing, let us know by clicking the 'email' link in the upper right corner of the page and send us the resource and URL so we can share it.

Thanks,
Symon Perriman
Program Manager
Clustering & HA

Microsoft

Resources

Useful Sources

Windows Server 2008 R2

Core

Deployment, Migration & Upgrades

Exchange Server

File Server, DFS-R, DFS-N & NFS

Hyper-V

Miscellaneous

Multi-Site Clustering

Network Load Balancing

Other Resources & Workloads

PowerShell, Cluster.exe & Scripting

Print Clustering

SQL Server

Utilities
 

·         Blog: Cluster Team: http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/

·         Blog: Ask Core: Clustering

·         Training: Course 6423a: Implementing and Managing WS08 Clustering

·         Website: Cluster Information Portal

·         Website: Clustering Forum (2008)

·         Website: Clustering Forum (2008 R2)

·         Website: Clustering Newsgroup

·         Website: Cluster Technical Resources

·         R2 Evaluation Build: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/try-it.aspx

·         Blog: Adding Features via PowerShell

·         Blog: Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV): Disk Ownership

·         Blog: Deploying Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

·         Blog: How to manually defrag or ChkDisk a CSV disk

·         Blog: Hyper-V Export and Import (2008 R2)

·         Blog: Live Migration Traffic

·         Blog: Network Load Balancing (NLB) and Virtual Machines

·         Blog: PowerShell for Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 R2

·         Blog: PowerShell for Network Load Balancing (NLB) in Windows Server 2008 R2

·         Blog: SCVMM Quick Storage Migration

·         KB Article: Hyper-V R2 Upgrades

·         TechNet: Exchange 2010 Move Local Legacy Mailbox

·         TechNet: Migration to Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clusters

·         TechNet: Using Live Migration in Windows Server 2008 R2

·         TechNet: What’s new in R2 Clustering

·         Webcast: Building a Hyper-V R2 Cluster

·         Webcast: Clustering in a Virtual World

·         Webcast: Deploying Clusters for Live Migration

·         Webcast: Failover and Live Migration

·         Webcast: Failover Clustering Feature Roadmap in WS08 R2

·         Webcast: Getting started with Hyper-V in R2 videos

·         Webcast: Getting Started with Live Migration 

·         Webcast: High Availability Basics with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V (Level 200)

·         Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 1

·         Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 2

·         Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 3

·         Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 4

·         Webcast: Hyper-V Quick Migration on a Failover Cluster

·         Website: Hyper-V Server (2008 R2)

·         Webcast: Innovating High Availability with Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

·         Webcast: Introducing Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

·         Webcast: Making Highly-Available VMs (2008 R2)

·         Webcast: Server Virtualization Webcast Videos

·         Webcast: Top 10 VMWare Myths, including CSV and live migration

·         Webcast: Top 10 VMWare Myths, including CSV and live migration

·         Webcast: Server Virtualization Webcast Videos

·         Webcast: Windows Server 2008 R2 Live Migration

·         Website: Clustering Forum (2008 R2)

·         Whitepaper: Hyper-V Live Migration Overview & Architecture

For PowerShell, Cluster.exe & Scripting see that section.

·         TechNet: Server Core

·         TechNet: Installation

·         Utility: Remote Server Administration Tools (simplifies Server Core configurations)

·         Webcast: How Microsoft does IT: Enhancing High Availability with Server Core in Windows Server 2008

For deployment guides for a specific resource (Exchange, File Server, Hyper-V, Print, SQL, Other) or for deployment using PowerShell, Cluster.exe or scripting, please visit that section.

·         Blog: Configuring Auditing

·         Blog: Migration Options for Hardware

·         Blog: Rolling Upgrade to Windows Server 2008 SP2 Failover Clustering

·         KB Article: Cluster Nodes as Domain Controllers (DCs)

·         KB Article: Failover behavior on large clusters (preferred owner, possible owner)

·         TechNet: Add a Server to a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet: Cluster Requirements

·         TechNet: Clustering with multiple active resources

·         TechNet: Configuring Accounts in Active Directory

·         TechNet: Creating a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet: Failover Clustering Deployment

·         TechNet: Installing a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet: Migrating Cluster Settings

·         TechNet: Migration to Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clusters

·         TechNet: Recommended Clustering Hotfixes (2003)

·         TechNet: Recommended Clustering Hotfixes (2003 SP2)

·         TechNet: Recommended Clustering Hotfixes (2008)

·         TechNet: Validating a cluster

o   Blog: Validation Warning: Teredo

o   Blog: Validation Warning: Patch GUID

·         TechNet: Validating Hardware for a Failover Cluster

·         Utility: Cluster Configuration Validation Wizard (ClusPrep) (2003)

·         Webcast: Configuring Failover Clustering

• Webcast: TechNet Webcast: Failover Cluster Validation and Troubleshooting with Windows Server 2008

·         KB Article: Exchange 2003: Move Mailbox 

·         Lab: TechNet Virtual Lab: Exchange Server 2007 Standby Continuous Replication

·         Lab: TechNet Virtual Lab: Using Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) in Exchange 2007

·         TechNet: Deploying Exchange 2003 in a Cluster

·         TechNet: Deploying Forefront Security with Exchange Clusters

·         TechNet: Exchange 2007 Cmdlets

·         TechNet: Exchange 2007 Move Mailbox Scenarios

·         TechNet: Exchange 2007 Overview

·         TechNet: Exchange 2010 Move Local Legacy Mailbox

·         TechNet: How to create an Exchange SCC Failover Cluster with CMD

·         TechNet: Installing Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) on 2008

·         TechNet: Planning for Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR)

·         Webcast: Exchange 2007 High Availability Deep Dive

·         Webcast: Exchange Webcast Videos

·         Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 1

·         Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 2

·         Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 3

·         Webcast: High-Availability in Exchange 2010 – Part 4

·         Webcast: How Microsoft IT Implemented New Storage Designs for Exchange Server 2007

·         Webcast: Installing Exchange 2007 SP1 CCR on Windows Server 2008

·         Webcast: Installing Exchange on WS08 Failover Clustering using UI Wizard

·         Webcast: Upgrading Exchange CCR Clusters from 2007 to 2007 SP1

·         Blog: Deploying DFS-R on a 2008 R2 Failover Cluster – Part 1 of 3

·         Blog: Deploying DFS-R on a 2008 R2 Failover Cluster – Part 2 of 3

·         Blog: Deploying DFS-R on a 2008 R2 Failover Cluster – Part 3 of 3

·         Blog: File Share ‘Scoping’ in Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters

·         Blog: Share Subdirectories in Windows Server 2008

·         TechNet: Configuring a Two-Node File Server Failover Cluster

·         TechNet: Create a Shared Folder in a Clustered File Server

·         TechNet: Creating a Clustered File Server checklist

·         Utility: File Server Migration Toolkit (FSMT) (2008)

·         Webcast: How Microsoft IT Deploys Windows 2008 Clusters for File Services

·         Webcast: New File Server Features of Windows Server 2008 (Level 200)

·         Webcast: Prepare Yourself for Windows Server 2008 (Part 5 of 8): New File Server Features

·         Website: File Server Migration Toolkit (2008)

·         Whitepaper: File Server Migration Toolkit (2008)

·         Blog: Adding a Pass-Through Disk to a HA VM

·         Blog: Deploying a HA Virtual Machine (2008)

·         Blog: HA Virtual Machine Deployment Considerations (2008)

·         Blog: Hyper-V Export and Import (2008 R2)

·         Blog: Monitor Network Traffic for a VM on a Cluster

·         Blog: Network Load Balancing (NLB) and Virtual Machines

·         Blog: SCVMM: Intelligent Placement

·         Blog: SCVMM: Quick Storage Migration

·         Blog: VM Scale with Clustering: Physical Memory Reservations

·         KB Article: Hyper-V R2 Upgrades

·         TechNet: Design for a Failover Cluster in Which All Nodes Run Hyper-V

·         TechNet: Failover Cluster in which the Servers run Hyper-V

·         TechNet: Getting Started with Hyper-V

·         TechNet: High-Availability for a Server Running Hyper-V

·         TechNet: Requirements and Recommendations for Failover Clusters in Which All Nodes Run Hyper-V

·         TechNet Case Study: Best Practices for Deploying VMs using Hyper-V

·         TechNet Case Study: How Microsoft IT Designs the Virtualization Host & Network Infrastructure

·         Training: Configuring Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008

·         Training: eBook: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions

·         Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 24 of 24): High Availability with Hyper-V

·         Webcast: Building a Hyper-V R2 Cluster

·         Webcast: Creating Business Continuity Solutions Using Windows Virtualization

·         Webcast: Deploying Clusters for Live Migration

·         Webcast: Failover and Live Migration

·         Webcast: Failover and Quick Migration of VMs

·         Webcast: Getting Started with Live Migration 

·         Webcast: Getting started with Hyper-V in R2 videos

·         Webcast: High Availability Basics with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V (Level 200)

·         Webcast: High Availability with Hyper-V

·         Webcast: Hyper-V Quick Migration on a Failover Cluster

·         Webcast: Introducing Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

·         Webcast: Making Highly-Available VMs (2008 R2)

·         Webcast: Server Virtualization Webcast Videos

·         Webcast: Top 10 VMWare Myths, including CSV and live migration

·         Website: Hyper-V Server (2008)

·         Website: Hyper-V Server (2008 R2)

·         Whitepaper: Testing Hyper-V and Failover Clustering

·         Whitepaper: Quick Migration with Hyper-V

·         Blog: Add a New Disk to a Cluster (2008)

·         Blog: Cluster Recovery (2003)

·         Blog: Cluster Virtual Adapter (NetFT)

·         Blog: Configuring Auditing for a Cluster (2008)

·         Blog: DNS Registration with the Network Name Resource

·         Blog: PlumbAllCrossSubnetRoutes

·         Blog: Resource Group Management Enhancements in 2008 R2 Failover Clustering – Part 1

·         Blog: Resource Group Management Enhancements in 2008 R2 Failover Clustering – Part 2

·         Blog: RHS and what does it does

·         Blog: Stop 0x9E Error

·         KB Article: Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters

·         TechNet: Configuring the Quorum in a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet: Failover Cluster Management Snap-In

·         TechNet: Managing a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet: Modifying Settings for a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet: Support Policy

·         TechNet: Understanding Backup and Recovery Basics for a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet: Windows Server 2008 Itanium / IA64 support

·         Webcast: Achieving High Availability with Windows Server “Longhorn” Clustering (Level 200)

• Webcast: Build High-Availability Infrastructures with Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering
• Webcast: Delivering High Availability to Your Infrastructure

·         Webcast: Failover Clustering 101

• Webcast: http://msevents.mi
  
  Clustering and High Availability : Microsoft Blog - Microsoft server and infrastructure technology blogs, news and resources
  View original post|Add to del.icio.us| Created 5 months ago | Share

• Shining Requirements -

By the way, MapleStory gold is important to you level up quickly, so you can store enough more to play.

• Skylar Requirements -

Thank you for reading, and we can offer you cheap MapleStory Mesos if you want to buy it.

Over the past week we have seen a little bit of blogosphere activity regarding Windows 7 and batteries, specifically the new Windows 7 message “Considering replacing your battery”. Since this is related to the engineering of Windows 7 we’re going to use this blog to provide an update to people. As we have talk about many times, we have a relentless focus on the quality of Windows 7 and we take seriously any reports we receive that indicate a potential problem that could result in a significant failure of the OS. In a previous post we talked about the steps we take when we receive a bug report, in particular when we start to see several reports that appear to be the same. For the past week or so we have been diligently working through these steps and more to see if there is anything in Windows 7 we need to address regarding this issue. At this time we have no reason to believe there is any issue related to Windows 7 in this context.

Several press articles this past week have drawn attention to blog and forum postings by users claiming Windows 7 is warning them to “consider replacing your battery” in systems which appeared to be operating satisfactorily before upgrading to Windows 7.  These articles described posts in the support forums indicating that Windows 7 is not just warning users of failing batteries – as we designed Windows 7 to do this – but also implying Windows 7 is falsely reporting this situation or even worse, causing these batteries to fail.  To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement.

Using all the tools at our disposal including contacting customers reporting this issue on forums, customer service communications, partnerships with our PC makers, and of course the telemetry in Windows 7, we have been monitoring reports and discussions regarding this new feature, trying to separate reports of the designed behavior from those that might indicate an issue with Windows 7.  In the latter cases we are trying to understand the scope of applicability and obtain hardware on which to reproduce a faulty behavior.   To date all such steps indicate that we do have customers seeing reports of battery health issues and in all cases we have investigated Windows 7 has simply accurately detected a failing battery.   Before I go into our status on this particular issue, we should review the details behind this new feature.

One of the most obvious components of PC battery life (the runtime you get on battery power) is the battery itself. PC batteries inherently degrade in their ability to hold a charge and provide power (as is the case for all rechargeable batteries). The cause of this is complex and includes irreversible changes in battery chemistry, and increased internal resistance among other things and those in turn are dependent on the design and manufacturing of the battery. This degradation translates into less battery life for the user over the life of the battery in the PC.  Ultimately, batteries must be replaced to restore an acceptable battery life.  A quick check of mainstream laptops will show that batteries usually have a warranty of 12 months, which is about the length of time when statistically we expect to see noticeable degradation (meaning that you start to notice the need to charge more frequently). Those of us that have owned the same laptop (or mobile phone, or music player, or anything else with rechargeable batteries) for a couple of years and taken it through regular charge cycles have no doubt “felt” the decline in battery life though we might have attributed to any number of factors since we did not have any information available to us otherwise.

Windows 7 makes use of a feature of modern laptop batteries which have circuitry and  firmware that can report to Windows the overall health of the battery. This is reported in absolute terms as Watt-hours (W-hr) power capacity. Windows 7 then does a simple calculation to determine a percentage of degradation from the original design capacity. In Windows 7 we set a threshold of 60% degradation (that is the battery is performing at 40% of its designed capacity) and in reading this Windows 7 reports the status to you.  At this point, for example, a battery that originally delivered 5 hours of charge now delivers, on average, approximately 2 hours of charge.  The Windows 7 the notification is a battery meter icon and notification with a message “Consider replacing your battery”.  This notification is new to Windows 7 and not available in Windows Vista or Windows XP.

PC batteries expose information about battery capacity and health through the system firmware (or BIOS).  There is a detailed specification for the firmware interface (ACPI), but at the most basic level, the hardware platform and firmware provide a number of read-only fields that describe the battery and its status.  The firmware provides information on the battery including manufacturer, serial number, design capacity and last full charge capacity.  The last two pieces of information—design capacity and last full charge capacity—are the information Windows 7 uses to determine how much the battery has naturally degraded.   This information is read-only and there is no way for Windows 7 or any other OS to write, set or configure battery status information.  In fact all of the battery actions of charging and discharging are completely controlled by the battery hardware.  Windows only reports the battery information it reads from the system firmware. Some reports erroneously claimed Windows was modifying this information, which is definitely not possible.

As mentioned, every single indication we have regarding the reports we’ve seen are simply Windows 7 reporting the state of the battery using this new feature and we’re simply seeing batteries that are not performing above the designated threshold. Below we’ll talk about the data we have to support this point of view. It should stand to reason that some customers would be surprised to see this warning after upgrading a PC that was previously operating fine. Essentially the battery was degrading but it was not evident to the customer until Windows 7 made this information available. We recognize that this has the appearance of Windows 7 “causing” the change in performance, but in reality all Windows 7 did was report what was already the case.

The following data points contributed to our understanding of the reports we are seeing. Please keep in mind that all the telemetry we see is opt-in, anonymous, and respects our privacy policy.

• We have seen no reproducible reports of this notification on new hardware or newly purchased PCs. While we’ve seen the reports of new PCs receiving this notification, in all cases we have established that the battery was in a degraded state.
• Our OEM partners have utilized their telemetry (call center, support forums, etc.) and have let us know that they are seeing no activity beyond what they expect. It is worth noting that PC manufacturers work through battery issues with customers and have a clear view of what is to be expected both in general and with respect to specific models, timelines, and batteries.
• We’ve gone through all the major online support and self-help forums and when appropriate have worked to follow up with any reports of this notification being presented in error. Through this we have identified no reproducible cases where the battery or PC was new and have only learned of batteries that were degraded in capacity.
• In our telemetry from RTM code customers, only a very small percentage of users are receiving the “Consider replacing your battery” notification, and as expected, we are seeing systems older than ~1.5 years.  We’re seeing relatively fewer notifications compared to pre-release software as the average age of the system decreases.
• Microsoft has received 12 customer service incidents in addition to pulling 8 additional incidents from various forums. To date (for a total of 20 incidents), none of these have shown anything other than degraded batteries. 
• Microsoft has been using the technet community moderators to assist in further contacting customers reporting on this notification and we’ve assigned additional customer service personnel to be ready. However, of the 30 or so contacts we have received we have not learned of any new facts or conditions with respect to this notice.
• During pre-release testing of Windows 7 we saw almost precisely this same experience with customers in terms of the display of the notification. In fact, in looking at the hardware distribution of pre-release testing we saw an ever so slightly higher number of systems receiving this notice. This follows from the fact that a large set of customers are buying Windows 7 with new PCs or using the upgrade provided with a recent Windows Vista PC.
• When looking at the telemetry reports for the machines that have reported displaying this notification we have seen nothing in additional reliability data that indicates any other system anomalies.
• While the information regarding battery status is provided read-only to the operating system through ACPI, we performed a thorough code-review and verified that there exists no code that is capable of modifying battery status information.

This data would confirm our point of view that we are seeing nothing more than the normal course of battery degradation over time. The transparency provided in this new Windows 7 feature produced a notice that previously was not available to customers and did so shortly after upgrade. This is the root cause of the urgency with which we’ve seen postings, but does not change the reality of the condition of the battery. We have no confirmed cases of new machines with the as-purchased batteries.

As we always say with regards to any reports on the quality of Windows 7, we are going to continue to be diligent and use all the tools at our disposal to get to the bottom of a report that has the potential to require a code change we would distribute to customers. We are as certain as we can be that we have addressed the root cause and concerns of this report, but we will continue to monitor the situation. In particular, we will continue to have focused communication with our OEM partners as they monitor their customers and PCs over time.

Finally, if you believe you are receiving this error and your battery is new or believed to be in great shape we would encourage you to report this to us or your original PC maker. You are welcome to send me mail through the contact form on this page, use the TechNet forum, the Microsoft Answers forum, or visit support.microsoft.com where you can get additional information about how to contact Microsoft assisted support in your region.

Thanks,

Steven

The rumors are swirling that VMware is going to buy Zimbra, an open source e-mail platform currently owned by Yahoo. You’ve probably all read the various news articles about the rumors and the events leading up to the rumored acquisition, so I won’t bother you with them again.

Yesterday on Twitter, I mentioned that the Zimbra acquisition didn’t quite make sense to me. I wasn’t the only one; several others mentioned it, too. That sparked a great discussion with Chris Wolf of the Burton Group (really sharp guy, by the way). His comments caused me to look at the purported acquisition in a different light where it starts to make a bit more sense. The discussion reminded me why I’m not an analyst: sometimes I don’t take a broad enough view. (It’s something I’ll work on improving.)

Most people look at the Zimbra acquisition (assuming that the rumor is accurate and it really does happen) and immediately recognize the intent to compete against Microsoft Exchange. However, if you look at the Zimbra acquisition strictly from the perspective of competing against Microsoft Exchange in the market as it currently exists, you’ll quickly come to the same conclusion that I did: it doesn’t make sense. Get real: lots of companies have tried before and failed. I believe that If VMware were to use Zimbra to compete against Exchange in the traditional corporate messaging market, where Exchange mopped up very worthy competitors like Lotus Notes, VMware would end up a failure like so many others before them. As Chris Wolf pointed out on Twitter, the integration between Exchange and the Microsoft applications is just too great to take them head-on.

However, what if you consider that the market is shifting? There is a greater move toward private clouds running scalable, web-based applications. There is an inclination toward workloads that can run outside of an organization’s data center. There is a shift toward virtual desktops. There is desire and interest in embracing the idea of cloud computing—however you choose to define that—across organizations of many different shapes and sizes. In the light of these market factors, now the Zimbra acquisition starts to make more sense. Yes, VMware will compete against Microsoft with Zimbra, but not using today’s architectures and today’s paradigms. As Chris put it in a Twitter post yesterday (emphasis mine):

@TonyWilburn @scott_lowe - IMO vmware has to redefine the traditional app stack for long term survival; email has to be part of it

In the light of this line of thinking, the acquisition begins to make a bit more sense (again, assuming that it’s actually going to happen). Although VMware has different leadership, and it’s a different market, I do feel that VMware would not be successful taking on Microsoft Exchange without redefining how e-mail platforms—as a key part of the overall application stack—can be provisioned, deployed, and managed in conjunction with VMware’s broader private cloud/public cloud strategy.

So what do you think?

This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies.

VMware, Zimbra, and Why I’m Not an Analyst

• Walking a Fine Line
• VMworld 2009 Day 1 Keynote
• Thinking on Microsoft’s Licensing Changes
• Virtualization Short Take #3
• More on Hyper-V and NIC Teaming

1. The HDTV Converter is the only software that allows you to convert digital camera pictures, which have been edited in photo editors, such as Photoshop, back into a format that will be accepted by:

• Photo players, such as the Panasonic HDTV Photo Player
• HDTVs with built-in memory card sockets.
• Digital photo frames of all sizes.

2. The HDTV Converter is the only software that allows you to convert JPG or TIFF images, which were created from camera RAW files, into a DCF compatible format, which is required by many HDTVs and digital photo frames.

3. The HDTV Converter is the only software that allows you to convert JPG or TIFF images, which were created by film scanners, into a DCF compatible format, which is required by many by HDTVs and digital photo frames.

4. The HDTV Converter converts digital camera images into one of four formats:

• HDTV - full-screen 16:9 format meeting 1920x1080 HDTV requirements.
• HDTV vertical or horizontal letter-boxed 16:9 wide-screen format retaining the aspect-ratio of original image.
• Original image size is retained without decoding and re-encoding the JPEG image data, but DCF conformance is restored.
• A customer specified image size for full-screen display on digital picture frames.

1. The HDTV Converter is the only software that allows you to convert digital camera pictures, which have been edited in photo editors, such as Photoshop, back into a format that will be accepted by:

• Photo players, such as the Panasonic HDTV Photo Player
• HDTVs with built-in memory card sockets.
• Digital photo frames of all sizes.

2. The HDTV Converter is the only software that allows you to convert JPG or TIFF images, which were created from camera RAW files, into a DCF compatible format, which is required by many HDTVs and digital photo frames.

3. The HDTV Converter is the only software that allows you to convert JPG or TIFF images, which were created by film scanners, into a DCF compatible format, which is required by many by HDTVs and digital photo frames.

4. The HDTV Converter converts digital camera images into one of four formats:

• HDTV - full-screen 16:9 format meeting 1920x1080 HDTV requirements.
• HDTV vertical or horizontal letter-boxed 16:9 wide-screen format retaining the aspect-ratio of original image.
• Original image size is retained without decoding and re-encoding the JPEG image data, but DCF conformance is restored.
• A customer specified image size for full-screen display on digital picture frames.

1. The HDTV Converter is the only software that allows you to convert digital camera pictures, which have been edited in photo editors, such as Photoshop, back into a format that will be accepted by:

• Photo players, such as the Panasonic HDTV Photo Player
• HDTVs with built-in memory card sockets.
• Digital photo frames of all sizes.

2. The HDTV Converter is the only software that allows you to convert JPG or TIFF images, which were created from camera RAW files, into a DCF compatible format, which is required by many HDTVs and digital photo frames.

3. The HDTV Converter is the only software that allows you to convert JPG or TIFF images, which were created by film scanners, into a DCF compatible format, which is required by many by HDTVs and digital photo frames.

4. The HDTV Converter converts digital camera images into one of four formats:

• HDTV - full-screen 16:9 format meeting 1920x1080 HDTV requirements.
• HDTV vertical or horizontal letter-boxed 16:9 wide-screen format retaining the aspect-ratio of original image.
• Original image size is retained without decoding and re-encoding the JPEG image data, but DCF conformance is restored.
• A customer specified image size for full-screen display on digital picture frames.

Hi Cluster Fans,

Resources can be hard to find, so every few months we will be publishing an updated list of useful documents, guides and information to this blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/). 

If there is any other useful Microsoft content which you feel is missing, let us know by clicking the 'email' link in the upper right corner of the page and send us the resource and URL.

Thanks,
Symon Perriman
Program Manager
Clustering & HA

Microsoft

·         Blog: Cluster Team: http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/

·         Blog: Ask Core: Clustering

·         Training: Course 6423a: Implementing and Managing WS08 Clustering

·         Website: Cluster Technical Resources

·         Website: Cluster Information Portal

·         Website: Clustering Forum (2008)

·         Website: Clustering Forum (2008 R2)

·         Website: Clustering Newsgroup

·         Blog Guide: Deploying Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

·         Blog Guide: Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV): Disk Ownership

·         Blog Guide: PowerShell for Network Load Balancing (NLB) in Windows Server 2008 R2

·         Blog Guide:  PowerShell for Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 R2

·         Blog Guide: Live Migration Traffic

·         Blog Guide: How to manually defrag or ChkDisk a CSV disk

·         TechNet Guide: Using Live Migration in Windows Server 2008 R2

·         TechNet Guide: What�??s new in R2 Clustering

·         Webcast: Innovating High Availability with Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

·         Webcast: Failover Clustering Feature Roadmap in WS08 R2

·         Whitepaper: Windows Server 2008 R2 & Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 - Hyper-V Live Migration Overview & Architecture

·         Webcast: Windows Server 2008 R2 Live Migration

·         Webcast: Clustering in a Virtual World

·         Website: Clustering Forum (2008 R2)

·         Blog Guide: Cluster Virtual Adapter (NetFT)

·         Blog Guide: PlumbAllCrossSubnetRoutes

·         Whitepaper: Failover Cluster Architecture Overview

·         Guide: Server Core

·         TechNet: Installation

·         Utility: Remote Server Administration Tools (simplifies Server Core configurations)

·         Webcast: How Microsoft does IT: Enhancing High Availability with Server Core in Windows Server 2008

·         Blog Guide: Migration Options for Hardware

·         Blog Guide: PrintBRM Error 0x80070043 workaround

·         Blog Guide: DHCP Database migration to Windows Server 2008

·         Blog Guide: PrintBRM.exe, 0�?80070043 and Print Clusters - A Workaround

·         KB Guide: Exchange 2003: Move Mailbox 

·         KB Article: SQL Server 2008 Rolling Upgrades

·         KB Article: Cluster Nodes as Domain Controllers (DCs)

·         MSDN Guide: SQL Upgrade Paths

·         MSDN Guide: SQL Cluster Upgrade

·         TechNet Guide: Migrating Cluster Settings

·         TechNet Guide: Failover Clustering Deployment

·         TechNet Guide: Validating Hardware for a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: Installing a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: Creating a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: Cluster Requirements

·         TechNet Guide: Validating a cluster

o   Blog Guide: Validation Warning: Teredo

o   Blog Guide: Validation Warning: Patch GUID

·         TechNet Guide: Configuring Accounts in Active Directory

·         TechNet Guide: Recommended Clustering Hotfixes (2003)

·         TechNet Guide: Recommended Clustering Hotfixes (2003 SP2)

·         TechNet Guide: Recommended Clustering Hotfixes (2008)

·         TechNet Guide: Exchange 2007 Overview

·         TechNet Guide: Exchange 2007 Cmdlets

·         TechNet Guide: Print Migration Overview

·         TechNet Guide: UI: Print Migration Tool/Wizard

·         Utility: File Server Migration Toolkit (FSMT) (2008)

• Webcast: TechNet Webcast: Failover Cluster Validation and Troubleshooting with Windows Server 2008  
• Website: File Server Migration Toolkit (2008) 
• Whitepaper: File Server Migration Toolkit (2008) 
• Whitepaper: Configuring and Troubleshooting AD CS (2008)

·         Lab: TechNet Virtual Lab: Exchange Server 2007 Standby Continuous Replication

·         Lab: TechNet Virtual Lab: Using Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) in Exchange 2007

·         TechNet: Installing Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) on 2008

·         TechNet: Deploying Exchange 2003 in a Cluster

·         TechNet: Planning for Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR)

·         TechNet: Installing CCR on Windows Server 2008

·         TechNet: How to create an Exchange SCC Failover Cluster with CMD

·         Webcast: How Microsoft IT Implemented New Storage Designs for Exchange Server 2007

·         Webcast: Exchange 2007 High Availability Deep Dive

·         Blog Guide: File Share �??Scoping�?? in Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters

·         Blog Guide: Share Subdirectories in Windows Server 2008

·         TechNet Guide: Configuring a Two-Node File Server Failover Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: Creating a Clustered File Server checklist

·         TechNet Guide: Create a Shared Folder in a Clustered File Server

·         WebCast: TechNet Webcast: Prepare Yourself for Windows Server 2008 (Part 5 of 8): New File Server Features

·         WebCast: How Microsoft IT Deploys Windows 2008 Clusters for File Services

·         Webcast: New File Server Features of Windows Server 2008 (Level 200)

·         Blog Guide: Deploying a HA Virtual Machine (2008)

·         Blog Guide: HA Virtual Machine Deployment Considerations (2008)

·         Blog Guide: Network Load Balancing (NLB) and Virtual Machines

·         Blog Guide: Adding a Pass-Through Disk to a HA VM

·         Blog Guide: SCVMM: Intelligent Placement

·         Blog Guide: Monitor Network Traffic for a VM on a Cluster

·         TechNet Case Study: How Microsoft IT Designs the Virtualization Host & Network Infrastructure

·         TechNet Case Study: Best Practices for Deploying VMs using Hyper-V

·         TechNet Guide: Getting Started with Hyper-V

·         TechNet Guide: High-Availability for a Server Running Hyper-V

·         TechNet Guide: Design for a Failover Cluster in Which All Nodes Run Hyper-V

·         TechNet Guide: Requirements and Recommendations for Failover Clusters in Which All Nodes Run Hyper-V

·         TechNet Guide: Failover Cluster in which the Servers run Hyper-V

·         TechNet Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 24 of 24): High Availability with Hyper-V

·         TechNet Webcast: Creating Business Continuity Solutions Using Windows Virtualization

·         TechNet Webcast: High Availability with Hyper-V

·         Webcast: Top 10 VMWare Myths, including CSV and live migration

·         Webcast: Hyper-V Quick Migration on a Failover Cluster

·         Whitepaper: Quick Migration with Hyper-V

·         Whitepaper: Testing Hyper-V and Failover Clustering

·         Blog Guide: Add a New Disk to a Cluster (2008)

·         Blog Guide: Configuring Auditing for a Cluster (2008)

·         Blog Guide: Cluster Recovery (2003)

·         KB Article: The Microsoft Support Policy for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters

·         TechNet Guide: Configuring the Quorum in a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: Managing a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: Modifying Settings for a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: The Failover Cluster Management Snap-In

·         TechNet Guide: Understanding Backup and Recovery Basics for a Failover Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: Support Policy

·         TechNet Guide: Windows Server 2008 Itanium / IA64 support

·         Webcast: Top 10 Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering Enhancements over Windows Server 2003 Clustering, Based on Best Practices (Level 300)

·         Webcast: Failover Clustering 101

·         Webcast: Achieving High Availability with Windows Server �??Longhorn�?� Clustering (Level 200)

• Webcast: Microsoft Webcast: Reducing IT Overhead with Windows Server 2008 Storage Features
• Webcast: TechNet Webcast: Build High-Availability Infrastructures with Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering
• Webcast: IT Manager Webcast: Delivering High Availability to Your Infrastructure
• Webcast: TechNet Webcast: Failover Clustering and Quorum in Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Storage
• Webcast: TechNet Virtual Lab: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Failover Clustering Lab

·         Whitepaper: Microsoft�??s HA Strategy

·         Whitepaper: Overview of Failover Clustering

·         Whitepaper: HA with Microsoft MPIO (2003, 2008)

·         Website: Windows Logo site

·         Webcast: Introduction to Failover Clustering

·         Cluster Team Site: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/failover-clustering-multisite.aspx

·         KB Article: Deployment Considerations for Windows Server 2008 failover cluster nodes on different, routed subnets

·         Webcast: TechNet Webcast: Geographically Dispersed Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

·         Webcast: How You Can Achieve Greater Availability with Failover Clustering Across Multiple Sites (Level 300) 

·         Whitepaper: Multi-site Clustering

·         Webcast: Multi-Site Clustering in Windows Server 2008

·         Blog Guide: Network Load Balancing (NLB) and Virtual Machines

·         KB Article: NLB Troubleshooting Overview

·         KB Article: Create/manage/destroy NLB clusters via NLB Manager remotely from another server, or from RSAT client (admin pack) on Vista

·         Presentation: Server Core: Install the NLB feature

·         TechNet Guide: Configuring NLB with Terminal Services

·         TechNet Guide: NLB Deployment Guide

·         TechNet Guide: Implementing a new NLB Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: Verifying the NLB Cluster and Enabling Client Access

·         TechNet Guide: Overview of NLB

·         TechNet Guide: Creating NLB Clusters

·         TechNet Guide: Managing NLB Clusters

·         TechNet Guide: Setting NLB Parameters

·         TechNet Guide: Controlling Hosts on NLB clusters

·         TechNet Guide: Troubleshooting for System Event Messages Related to NLB Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: User Interface: NLB Manager

·         TechNet Guide: Upgrading a NLB Cluster

·         TechNet Guide: Upgrading a Network Load Balancing (NLB) Cluster

·         Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 23 of 24): Failover Clustering and Network Load Balancing z

·         Blog Guide: Configure Multiple Instances of MSDTC (2008)

·         Blog Guide: Installing MSDTC (2003)

·         Blog Guide: Optimize Print Cluster (2003)

·         Blog Guide: Creating and Configuring a Generic Application Resource

·         TechNet Guide: Configuring Generic Resources

·         TechNet Guide: Configure a Service or Application for High Availability

·         Blog Guide: Creating a Cluster using WMI

·         Blog Guide: CLI: Cluster Resource Groups

·         Blog Guide: CLI: Quorum

·         Blog Guide: CLI: Disk Resources

·</fo
[clustering nlb cluster failover wsfc network load balancing windows server 2008 core exchange symon perriman SQL hyper-v file server r2 windows server 2008 r2 deployment multi-site scripting ]
Clustering and High Availability : Microsoft Blog - Microsoft server and infrastructure technology blogs, news and resources
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I’m a bit new to the Cisco MDS family of Fibre Channel switches, so I’m sure that this information is “old hat” to the storage pros out there who’ve done it a million times. Hence, I’m labeling this one as a “new user” article. The topic of this post is how to use the command-line interface (CLI) to configure zones on a Cisco MDS 9000 series Fibre Channel switch.

I won’t go into great detail on the purpose of zones and that sort of thing; I’m sure it’s been covered in excruciating detail elsewhere. (Knowledgeable readers with any links to that sort of information are encouraged to share those links in the comments.) Instead, I’ll just focus on the mechanics of how it’s done.

First, create some aliases for your own use instead of having to remember the Fibre Channel World Wide Port Names (WWPNs). This will make life a lot easier, in my opinion. You create aliases using the fcalias command, like this (where applicable in this command and all other commands in this post, replace XXX with the appropriate VSAN number):

switch(config)# fcalias name stor-array-processor-a vsan XXX
switch(config-fcalias)# member pwwn AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF:00:11
switch(config-fclias)# exit
switch(config)#

Obviously, you’ll replace the fake WWPN I used in the command above with the correct WWPN for that device. Repeat this process for all the storage processor ports, server HBAs, etc. From this point forward, you can use the alias in place of the WWPN when creating zones. See, isn’t that easier?

Next, create zones. Each zone should have a single initiator and (ideally) a single target, although multiple targets is usually acceptable. To create a zone, use the zone and member commands like this:

switch(config)# zone name first-new-zone vsan XXX
switch(config-zone)# member fcalias stor-array-processor-a
switch(config-zone)# member fcalias server-hba
switch(config-zone)# exit
switch(config)#

Since each zone contains only a single initiator, you’ll need to repeat this process for each initiator.

Once you have all the zones created, next create a zoneset. You can create a new zoneset just using the zoneset command, or you can clone an existing zoneset with the zoneset clone command. In this case, I’ll clone an existing zoneset:

switch(config)# zoneset clone existing-zoneset new-zoneset vsan XXX

From here, you have a copy of the existing zoneset, which already had all the previously defined zones as members. Add the new zones you’ve defined to the zoneset like this:

switch(config)# zoneset new-zoneset vsan XXX
switch(config-zoneset)# member first-new-zone
switch(config-zoneset)# member second-new-zone
switch(config-zoneset)# exit

Finally, activate the zoneset:

switch(config)# zoneset activate name new-zoneset vsan XXX

Then save the configuration with copy runn start and you should be good to go! All you need to do now is configure and present storage from the storage array to the initiators. But that’s another topic for another post…

This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies.

New User’s Guide to Configuring Cisco MDS Zones via CLI

• LACP with Cisco Switches and NetApp VIFs
• Sanrad Configuration Basics
• Cisco Link Aggregation and NetApp VIFs
• Bulk Adding Entries in DNS
• VIR250: Advanced Storage Connectivity for VMs

Am I the only one having this issue? Is there some tuning I should be doing?

The easiest way to get started with VIX is by using the vmrun command which is packaged inside of VIX. It's a command-line executable that doesn't require a development environment, and is pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it.

Since I mostly use ESX, I want to take an ESX-centric view of using vmrun in this post, and I'm also going to focus on what you can do to the guest operating system within VMs. Specifically I'm going to address two use cases that I think are pretty important and useful:

1. Installing an agent within a VM.
2. Restarting a service on a Windows VM.

First, you'll need to install VIX 1.6.2. On Windows you'll find vmrun in %PROGRAMFILES%\VMware\VMware VIX. On Linux it should be available in your path, so you can just run it from anywhere. Next, make sure you've got an ESX 3.5 update 2 or higher server to run commands against. In addition, you'll need a VM whose operating system is running an up-to-date copy of VMware tools.

If you type vmrun with no arguments you'll get a listing of all the things vmrun can do, but I want to focus on guest operations, which are listed below.

Table 1: Guest operations supported by vmrun.

Use case: Installing an agent in your VM.

Installing agents is an integral part of managing large numbers of systems, whether physical or virtual. Usually you want to bake your agents into your OS image, but occasionally a new agent will come along that needs to be deployed to existing systems. This example shows how you can copy an agent from your desktop to your VM and install it. The only thing you need is an agent that can be installed without user intervention (which is the norm for agents anyway).

Please note: Commands should be entered all on one line, it's split up here just for the sake if fitting it into the blog.

Example 1: Copying an MSI file from your desktop to your VM.

One thing to point out here is that, despite the command saying "From Host to Guest" the file is actually being copied from the same system where vmrun is invoked (for example your laptop or workstation).

Next we use runProgramInGuest to install the MSI.

Example 2: Invoke the MSI file we copied above.

Use case: Restarting a service on Windows.

This one's really easy so I'll just show it without explanation.

Example 3: Restart a service on Windows.

If Linux is more your style, tweak the last part to say something like /etc/init.d/sshd restart and you'll be restarting Linux services just as easily.

How do I get the path to my VMX file?

The hardest part about dealing with vmrun when you're managing ESX is knowing where your VMX file is. To get this you have to either log in to your ESX system and locate the VMX file, or you can use the VI API. Within the VI API, the VirtualMachine object contains a data structure called VirtualMachineFileInfo. The vmPathName property of this structure tells you the path to your VMX file. Not very pretty, but over time you'll see us rolling out some more convenient ways to access the functionality VIX provides. In the meantime there's a lot of really useful stuff you can do with tools like vmrun.

Also i find it pretty annoying the event is spamming my eventlog full since the event occurs every 2 seconds and surely around 200 times.