VM Install

Like a new mom and dad, have you given any thought to what naming standards you plan to use for your new virtual environment? Right, I said naming standards because you will have to have names for the VirtualCenter or VMM, datacenter, clusters, data stores (LUNs), ESX or Hyper-V host servers, VLAN tags, VM guests, user groups, alert rules and possibly few more services and roles.

I kid you not - six months after you setup your virtual infrastructure it will dawn on you that you should have thought this out sooner, uh, why did we call the data stores datastore-hp-8000-01 thru datastore-hp-8000-128 even the NetApp ones? And, why did we call all our VLAN tags “temp-v120” through “temp-v897” when they are not “temp”? Now you have to go back and change all that stuff and that could break scripts if you have any running, not to mention it is a slow process and what about documentation?

What are your best practices for naming?

Nip the naming standards in the bud ASAP because your VM environment will grow very fast and soon it will look like a spam email with upper-case and lower-case names, and host name like Viagra and Mickey Mouse, get the point?

I recommend a naming convention that uses a tree: Datacenter>cluster>host>datastore

Ex. Datastore = DC1-CL1-((server name) (rack id))-((LUN ID)-(Datastore ID))

Ex. VLAN tag = VLAN1 (all upper-case)

Remember to keep names simple and don’t let someone get lazy and cut corners or it will be you cleaning up the mess.;-)

Originally posted 2009-02-05 16:47:37. Republished by Old Post Promoter

This will cover Windows templates but the same steps are used with Linux, except the Sysprep.
After you get your VM the way you want it, patches, secured and have your applications installed, you right click on it in the inventory windows of your virtual center and select “convert to template”.
Converting to a template will allow [...]

Free Tool - Trilead VM Explorer for ESX/ESXi  Download >>> Trilead VM Explorer <<<
Trilead VM Explorer is a free (public beta) VM management tool that works on VMware ESX/ESXi. I haven’t had the time to install or evaluate VM Explorer but just going over the features, it looks like a worthwhile product for those shops that [...]

Buzz Word
 
Has virtualization become a buzz word in your strategic plan? Take the advice from someone who has spent years supporting VMware in three different enterprise environments - think before you V.
 
If all you plan is a small experimental cluster of virtual servers, it’s no big deal. The software is even free. VMware ESXi is [...]

If you have a growing Virtual Infrastructure, like most - it has out grown the monitoring tools integrated into VirtualCenter. VC has very limited capability to help resource managers and NOCs monitor and manage virtuals and this post will identify a few short falls.
There are actually three categories this post could be broken up into, and [...]

Has it been hours, or even days, since you started troubleshooting ESX cluster and HA errors? I can relate to this painful and tiring experience. Although, I could be just taking it for granted that everyone doing virtual infrastructure installations has the same problems and issues that I have run into, NOT!
DNS issues seem to [...]

If you’re interested in Microsoft Hype-V Technology, I’ve found viewing the following YouTube video worth the 4-1/2 minutes: Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Demo on Quad-Core Intel Xeon

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Originally posted 2009-02-15 07:53:11. Republished by Old Post Promoter

We’ve added a new feature to VMinstall.com which will be very useful to the virtual infrastructure community, SimplePress Forum.
Our goal for the new year is a single community for many of the virtual environment vendors i.e. VMware, Hyper-V, Xen, Virtual Iron, and others here on the VMinstall.com. We invite you to help support our website by joining the forum [...]