Malaysia VMware Communities » SQL

Database requirement in Citrix Xendesktop

craig — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 02:53:25 +0000

I had gone through few days of hands on training for Citrix Xendesktop. The experience of the training is good and it went through technical deep dive. 1 of the key thing we discussed during the training was about the databases requirements to support the Xendesktop and Xenapp infrastructure. Microsoft SQL will be 1 of the key component, and you will require to plan for the high availability architecture to support the production environment.

The best approach may just consider to build an independent Active/Passive or Active/Active SQL cluster to support the infrastructure. A backup for the SQL is always recommended to create recovery point in the event of data corruption. Most data on the SQL databases is the configuration changes, log and etc. Similar to VMWare vCenter Database.

XenDesktop License Server Flexibility

SQL Native client on vCenter 4 with Windows 2008 64 bits

craig — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 06:29:36 +0000

Many of you may had slowly migrated your vcenter to windows 2008 64 bits or R2 recently. As we know, the vCenter server will still require a 32 bit DSN to connect to the 64 bit SQL database even the operating system are currently on 64 bits. You may able to search this on the google easily which suggest you to execute this command odbcad32 from start run to create the 32 bits client, but this may not work actually. I done twice and I hit the same problem as the ODBC console launch are still 64 bits.

In order to launch the 32 bits DSN client wizard from the ODBC, you will require to manually browser to the folder under C:\windows\syswow64\odbcad32.exe and right click select run as administrator. Right after it, the ODBC configuration on 32 bits will be prompted. Before you can install the correct SQL Native Client, you will require the correct 32 bits client in place which meant for 64 bits operating system. This source file will usually found on the SQL installation CD under the 32 bits folder which meant for the 64 bits operating system use. Right after all in place, the rest of the configuration on the vCenter setup will carry as usual.

This method are worked for both Microsoft SQL 2005 and SQL 2008. Have fun……..

vCenter Services stop after Windows Server rebooted

craig — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:08:56 +0000

You may faced the similar issue by default if you currently running your vcenter server 4 on top of Windows 2008. The reason of the services start up failure are due to the dependency setting require to add in manually.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007669

I found the KB above which describe in details about the root cause and solution to over come this.

This issue may occur if the VirtualCenter Server service starts before one of the services it depends on. The VirtualCenter Server service is dependent on the following services:

SQL Services
ADAM Services (when using linked mode in vCenter Server 4.0)

To resolve this issue, add a dependency to the VirtualCenter service so that it only starts after the necessary services have started.

Note: This solution assumes that the database server and the SQL server reside on the same machine. If the SQL server is on a different physical machine, you must ensure that the SQL server is functioning before attempting to start the VirtualCenter service.

To create a service dependency:

Click Start > Run.
Type services.msc and press Enter.
Locate any services that VirtualCenter requires. For example, SQLEXP_VIM or ADAM_VCMSDS.
Open the service properties and note the Service Name. For example, MSSQL$SQLEXP_VIM .
In the Run dialog, type Regedit.exe and press Enter. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vpxd.
Double-click the DependOnService key and add the Service name using the name identified in step 4.
Close Regedit.
Go back to the Services window and open the service properties for the service identified in step 3.
On the Dependencies tab, verify the VMware VirtualCenter service is listed as depending on the service.
Repeat steps 3 to 9 for any services that VirtualCenter requires.

New experience on vCenter 4

craig — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:22:58 +0000

I just got the official release of vSphere 4 today and finally got it work on my test lab. 1st thing before I upgraded my ESX servers is I need to upgrade my vCenter. If you are running RC now, you may not able to manage the official release vSphere 4 host by RC version of vCenter you had. I reinstall fresh for my vCenter 4 on Windows 2003. Since is a test lab, I do not build the DB on SQL Server as I did for production. I am using the default sql express as part of the installation.The installation process will not be much different compare to RC, but the resource utilization of the vCenter 4 will make the different.

I notice that the memory utilization for vCenter 4 is very high even I run it on Windows 2003 Server. The highest memory utilization of the vCenter is not SQL or anything, but is Tomcat. Can you believe that the Tomcat will take up to 1.3GB of physical memory show in the task manager? This had given myself a signal that I may need to increase the memory I had on the production virtual center server I have before I may consider a final upgrade to vCenter 4 for production purpose.

Slow performance on vCenter 4

craig — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:49:07 +0000

As vSphere is on the way, many of you may had experienced to test the RC release now. 1 of the thing you may notice is about the performance on vCenter 4 which bundle as part of the vSphere infrastructure in the coming release. I had personally compared the system performance within vCenter 2.5 and 4, and I found the vcenter 4 will require more resource to satisfy the system to run smoothly. The resource require to run the SQL server will not make any big different in this case, but you will notice the tomcat process in the task manager will take up quite a number of resources from your vCenter server.

To improve the performance of your vCenter, you may need to consider to increase the physical memory on it, or you may also consider to disable the virtual center web management services from services.msc prompt in Microsoft windows. I had my vCenter running on Windows 2003 and Windows 2008, and I do experience the similar performance issues. As my scenario, I can manage my environment without web management, therefore I had decided to disable the services and save the physical memory from the server for other purpose.

Best Practices to Virtualize SQL Server

craig — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:35:14 +0000

There are more users considering to virtualize their SQL servers today, but performance requirement always become the major concern before they virtualize the SQL servers. I had read through lots of the forums, white papers and articles, which all discussed about SQL server in virtual environment, and I found some useful information here which I agree with the inputs from drummonds.

Click here to read more about the Best Practices for SQL Server on VMware

To share my experience here, I had successed to virtualize numbers of SQL in my environment. What I had done is similar to his suggestion and our SQL server is performed well as it needed. I will encourage anyone who are planning to virtualize their SQL servers to read this post, and it should be helpful for your virtualize plan.

Database Upgrade during vCenter 2.5 Update 4 Installation

craig — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:54:24 +0000

vCenter 2.5 Update 4 is available download and official released by VMware. You can read through the information from here

I had just done my vCenter upgrade today from 2.5 Update 3 to update 4. I notice some graphic interfaces changes compare to the previous version. Databases upgrade is required during the installation process. I will suggest to backup the databases related to virtual center before you perform any upgrade to your production environment. If anything goes wrong, you should able to restore your databases immediately. The Databases upgrade is supported with both Microsoft SQL and Oracle.

This GUI interface allow you to retain all the previous data of your virtual center. If you wish to refresh your database, you can choose Drop or Discard from the option above.

Upgrade in progress

Upgrade completed and you should able to see the summarize of the upgrade option.

vCenter on Linux & Cross Platform Client

ratatouille — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:08:20 +0000

For those who missed VMworld 2008 in Las Vegas hope this piece of info will trigger some excitement. Under the “Explore Technology & Architecture” category Breakout Session #TA3201 : Linux Strategy & Roadmap outline some interesting stuff for those pure Open Source or Linux house. It will definitely a good news if you plan or already virtualize with VMware. As most of us know the “legacy” VirtualCenter or the new name to be release vCenter required to have a AD or MS server in house to manage VI3 & ESX.

Beside OS dependancy it also require a database which currently so sad only work with Oracle or MSSQL. During TA3201 session under “Linux Initiatives“ mentioned vCenter will have a Linux appliance version as well as a Cross Platform Client. As follow are some highlight what’s is in the vCenter Linux appliance. The interesting part is there is no mention whether it will support OpenSource databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL.

I am really interested to know & looking forward for the release.

Virtual Center Server corrupted after 2.5 U3 upgrade

craig — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 03:32:36 +0000

Many of you may trying to upgrade the Virtual Center Server 2.5 U3 which recently release from VMware. As usual, I always like to be the earlier bird to test out everything and be excited to implement to my environment. Here is what I discover during the after the upgrade.

During the upgrade, there is the SQL script at the backend which trying to upgrade your DB table for your virtual center database and update manager. It does show some error during the upgrade and the screen will dissapear. Once it complete, you will find that your virtual center are still functioning as usual. 2 days later, you will start realize the Virtual center services is not able to be started anymore. Now is the big problem come. If you have backup your DB before the upgrade, you should be good. Or else, you will lose whatever data previously you have. Always backup the DB before any upgrade. A good example, missing template posted by superman previously.

From this issue, I spent a full day to investigate 1 by 1 to troubleshoot and find out the root cause. I had even removed the entire VC and reinstall the previous version, unfortunately, problem is not as easy as I had thought. This doesn’t solve my problem. The last move, I reinitiate the DB for both virtual center and update manager both during the fresh installation, now the environment is back to normal.

I had conclusion the root casue is absolutely cause by the failure upgrade on the SQL during the upgrade installation. I am not very confident to the VMware QA team regarding their upgrade release. They should had tested this all upgrade properly before it release for the public. It could be very risky to the users always.

Some additional tips before you reinstall, you should browse to the folder location which previously store all the patches you had download for your update manager, in case you do not required to re-download again once you reinstall. The patches could be easily more than 4GB, which will take a long time for you to download from the internet again.

Today, I found some solution from VMware sites.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007196

This had clearly explained the bugs they have for this upgrade. But again, is too late for my case which is already screw up my virtual center. Earlier bird is always risky and excited but again, VMware need to improve their QA and QC for the product release.

Missing VM Template

jlchannel — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:16:21 +0000

Few days ago, one of my virtual center machine was crashed and my Microsoft SQL database was corrupted without backup(damm!).

Basically setting up a brand new Windows 2003 machine is pretty simple but setup a new Virtual Machine took me 2 days. The most important is my VM template is go missing. The quick solution is search for VM template and register (add to inventory) again.

SSH into my ESX server using putty and search for VM template file with extension “.vmtx”.

[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# find /vmfs -name *.vmtx
/vmfs/volumes/465eeddb-89b75750-a52d-011aa0289d15/W2K3STD/W2K3STD.vmtx
/vmfs/volumes/465eeda7-2a63d436-724b-011aa0289d15/RHEL5/RHEL5.vmtx

How to register a VM template using CLI:
[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -s register

In my case, I will register my VM template as example below:
[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -s register /vmfs/volumes/465eeddb-89b75750-a52d-011aa0289d15/W2K3STD/W2K3STD.vmtx
[root@malaysiavmesx01 vmfs]# /usr/bin/vmware-cmd -s register /vmfs/volumes/465eeda7-2a63d436-724b-011aa0289d15/RHEL5/RHEL5.vmtx

Probably you can check previous article “How to re-register a VM once it had been removed from ESX” posted by Craig for register a VM template using Virtual Center and browse through the data store.

The lesson tell me I MUST backup SQL database and VM template keep in the database.