Posts Tagged vmware
HDS SRA 2.0
Posted by martijn in Tools, Virtualization on January 25, 2010
If you want VMware SRM to work with your storage array it needs to communicate to the storage array. For this reason each storage vendor has created a Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) which plugs into SRM. You can download these SRAs for each vendor here. (Note : Only download from the VMware website. Why?)
HDS also provides a SRA to connect to its storage arrays. But only installing the SRA won’t get the storage array to be recognized by SRM. The picture below gives a graphical representation of the component needed to let SRM communicate with the HDS storage array.
Click on picture to enlarge
The HDS SRA 2.0 needs an instance of the HDS Command Control Interface (CCI) to communicate to the HDS storage array. The HDS CCI is storage box management software which is provided by HDS. This can be installed on the SRM server next to SRM and the SRA.
To create an instance of the HDS CCI a Hitachi Online Remote Copy Manager (HORCM) service is defined manually on the Windows host. The HDS CCI manages the storage array(s) through the defined control LUNs on each storage array. The HORCM service is configured in the HORCM file. This file defines which LUNs are replicated between the protected and the recovery site. These LUNs are the LUNs that SRM can see and which it can managed for Disaster Recovery and testing purposes.
During configuration the HDS SRA is pointed to the HORCM instance which manages the storage array(s). All this provides the HDS SRA with the information which it passes through to the SRM server.
This creates the connection between the SRM server and the storage array necessary for SRM to work. For more information look at the VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Deployment created by HDS. Follow its step-by-step instructions carefully while it is essential getting HDS to work with SRM.
VMware vSphere & SRM with Hitachi Data Systems (HDS)
Posted by martijn in Tools, Virtualization on January 22, 2010
This post is about Site Recovery Manager (SRM) in combination with the storage system of Hitachi Data Systems (HDS). I’ve been working with over the last couple of months. This is a braindump of my knowledge about the product.
HDS has complete portfolio of storage solutions available. Every type of VMware environment can find a HDS solution suited for their needs. I’ve been working with the AMS2500. This is a SAS / SATA based storage array. It is a suitable solution for midrange size companies, but can also be used by enterprise size companies as a 2nd tier SAN. Next to this storage array HDS also provides enterprise class storage array with its Universal Storage Platform.
For both types of storage HDS provides best practices for VMware which can be found here for the AMS2000 series and here for the Universal Storage Platform VM.
Like all major storage vendors HDS also is a VMware partner when it comes to SRM. They committed themselves to the support of their storage systems with SRM through their HDS SRA 2.0.
For more information how to set up VMware SRM with HDS storage arrays take a look at the deployment guide here that HDS created. It’s a document that explains in detail how to setup your HDS storage array and HDS Storage Replicatoin Adapter (SRA) for the creation of your SRM environment.
For more information on HDS with VMware look at this resource page.
Cloud in your Pocket
Posted by martijn in Cloud computing, Tools on September 7, 2009
Wyse created an application for a VMware View / RDP client for the iPhone. An app giving the user full control over his virtual desktop through his / her iPhone. Resulting in the ability to access the cloud from your pocket through your mobile device.
This concept isn’t new, but Wyse made such an incredible app that it’s really easy to perform actions while connected to your desktop. Easy to use also on such a small screen!
Watch the video created by Richard Garsthagen made at VMworld to see it in action.
Long Distance vMotion by Cisco & VMware
Posted by martijn in Cloud computing, Virtualization on September 1, 2009
Cisco and VMware are currently working on a new technology called Long Distance vMotion. This makes it possible to move application workloads between multiple datacenters without any downtime. The vMotion technology is already available within VMware vSphere. It is used to migrate one VM from one host to another or wit Storage vMotion move the VMs data from one storage location to another. This with the machine being fully operable and available to the end-user.
The changing model of data center management and provisioning allows VMware VMotion to be used for several purposes without violating the application SLAs.
● Data center maintenance without downtime: Applications on a server or data center infrastructure requiring maintenance can be migrated offsite without downtime.
● Disaster avoidance: Data centers in the path of natural calamities (such as hurricanes) can proactively migrate the mission-critical application environments to another data center.
● Data center migration or consolidation: Migrate applications from one data center to another without business downtime as part of a data center migration or consolidation effort.
● Data center expansion: Migrate virtual machines to a secondary data center as part of data center expansion to address power, cooling, and space constraints in the primary data center.
● Workload balancing across multiple sites: Migrate virtual machines between data centers to provide compute power from data centers closer to the clients (“follow the sun”) or to load-balance across multiple sites. Enterprises with multiple sites can also conserve power and reduce cooling costs by dynamically consolidating virtual machines into fewer data centers (automated by VMware Dynamic Power Management [DPM]), another feature enabling the green data center of the future.
In these cases the secondary cloud can be provided by a service provider through a “virtual private cloud” connected to your “internal cloud”. Bringing down the TCO of your server infrastructure, using capacity in the secondary datacenter only when you need it and making use of a pay-per-use model for the consumed capacity. So this technology is a real cloud enabler!
For more information about this technology can be found here. Written by Omar Sultan.
Read the paper on this subject created by Cisco and VMware here.
vSphere Overview Video
Posted by martijn in Cloud computing, News, Virtualization on April 25, 2009
Nice video with an overview of the new vSphere product by VMware.
vSphere launched!
Posted by martijn in General, News, Virtualization on April 22, 2009
April 21th was the big day the VMware community was waiting for. Finally the next generation of Virtual Infrastructure was release by VMware. As already announced the new name for this bundle of software is vSphere! It was announced by VMware’s CEO Paul Maritz during a simulcast. You can still view the presentation here.
So the word is finally out. Let’s have some fun with this new product, but that probably won’t be a problem because of all the nice new features. And remember this is just the beginning. After this initial product release more will come. VMware will release new product which will integrate with vSphere in the next couple of months. The list can be found here. And not only VMware is going to release new products, but also the partners will release new innovative product which will make vSphere even a better product. So you’d better stay virtually connected to get the latest update!
Use SCOPE approach with server virtualization
Posted by martijn in Education, Tools, Virtualization on January 12, 2009
Starting server virtualization is always a difficult task to begin with. First thing you need to deside is which servers you want to virtualize (Well some pointers in that direction : all of them!). But with all difficult tasks you need to take a structured approach. Business isn’t waiting for you to bring down their critical applications. Therefor approach it one step at a time. This gives you the structured approach you need, slowly entering the learning curve of virtualization and giving your IT department the time to adapt to all virtualization technologies.
I would always advice to use a capacity planning tool for your “physical” server environmen, before beginning to start server virtualization. Tools like VMware Capacity Planner and Novell Platespin PowerRecon give you a good insight in what the workloads are on your physical servers. This will then be presented to you in a report with an advice for the most optimal virtual workload distribution across your “yet to be build” virtual infrastructure.
Besides these technical tools, you can also use SCOPE. A conceptual tool by Danielle Ruest and Nelson Ruest. SCOPE lets you quickly identify which workloads to start with. Begin in the lab, maybe even with the lab machines themselves, and slowly move your virtual workloads into production.
SCOPE is the step-by-step approach to virtualize your complete environment. So virtualize your environment in the following steps :
- Easy workloads; Servers that don’t consume a large workload and can be easily virtualized.
- Production workloads; Server used by users on a day-to-day business but that aren’t critical to your line of business
- Operational workloads; These server are mainly used by the IT department itself. Servers which demand a high workload but aren’t business critical
- Complex workloads; Server that are, already without virtualization, complex to maintain. These includes the servers which have common applications installed on them in mostly enabled with clustering / load balancing.
- Special workload; Each IT infrastructue has those servers which require special attention. When finishing the virtualization of your complete IT infrastructure, these servers will finish the job.
So as you can see, SCOPE gives you a five step approach to virtualizing your IT infrastructure. This will hopefully help you in creating a good virtualization strategy!
More information you can find here.
VMware Distributed Power Management Video
Posted by martijn in Education, Virtualization on January 10, 2009
Video has been on the net some time now. It was published before VMworld 2008. Still I love to put it here to show you what an amazing feature it is. It’s also great because you can see what the VMware product line is capable of. The video shows you a normal business day with a 4-node VMware cluster being hammered by your average production servers accompanied by some very nice music.
