Malaysia VMware Communities » Windows 2008

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.

Tags: SQL, vCenter, Windows 2008

Oracle officially supported on VMware Virtualization

craig — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:14:56 +0000

Previously Oracle had decline to provide the official support if you virtualizing your database instance into the VMware virtual infrastructure. Today, there is an official announcement from VMware which confirm the official support from oracle will be provided even you virtualize your database server into VMware.

This is a good news for most of the ERP users especially when you have SAP running in your production environment.

(see SAP Note 1173954 for details):
1. Since Jan 13, 2009, Oracle supports SAP production landscapes on Oracle DB single instance (no RAC) virtualized with VMware ESX 3.5 and higher
2. Minimum OS on MSFT is Windows Server 2008; SLES and RHEL are also supported
3. Minimum Oracle release is Oracle 10.2.0.4
4. Oracle will support VMware in the context of Oracle Metalink Note 249212.1

Read the full details from the official announcement.

Tags: Hyper-V, Oracle, RHEL, SLES, VMware, Windows 2008, Xen

VCenter Installation Error 28038

Jas — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:06:04 +0000

I’m getting an “error message: 28038″ just before the VMware VCenter Server installation end as screen shot below:

Workaround:

It’s pretty simple but it took me few hours(damn!). Please make sure your VCenter server have minimum one network cable connect to switches.

Tags: error, ESX, Installation, vCenter, VMware, Windows 2008

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.

Tags: SQL, vCenter, VMware, vSphere, windows 2003, Windows 2008

VMware Converter 4 Beta Available

craig — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:08:41 +0000

The VMware Converter 4 is now in public BETA. You will able to download the VM converter through the link below, providing you have an VMware store account for your log in. There are some new features in this version which provide the P2V solution for Linux environment on the fly. The Linux version which had been included are RHEL, SUSE and Ubuntu Linux.

It also support the P2V conversion process for Windows Server 2008. VM converter version 4 do support for converting new third-party image formats, including Parallels Desktop virtual machines, newer versions of Symantec, Acronis, and StorageCraft.

VMware Converter 4 Beta

Click here if you do not have a VMware account

Tags: Converter, ESX, P2V, RHEL, SLES, SUSE Linux, VMware, VMware Converter, Windows 2008

8 Vcpu per VM – VMware is behind the competitor

craig — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:12:35 +0000

I had just setup a brand new Citrix Xensource hypervisor server today for evaluation purpose. The really impress thing that attracted myself is the 8Vcpu per VM be able to configure which over take ESX servers 3.5 update 2 today. I know that VMware has their roadmap in the future to release the 8vcpu to support processing power hungry application to be virtualized in the future.

But if we compare the technology today, I believe most of us will see that from virtual cpu perspective, VMware had been quite slow respond on that. If you do spoke to most of the VMware representative or consultant, they always told you not to allocate more than 1 Vcpu if not required.

In real world, I believe that non of us will be satisfied with the single core performance for our server environment. Dual core is been in the market for more than 2 years, and quad core had been also popularize to most of us. Single core will just be SLOW in most of the event. I am here to urge VMware to push harder for more virtual CPU per VM. The thing that should consider is to compare with the competitor products like Xen and Xensource.

In Xen, you will allow to configure 8 vcpu per VM if your host have 8 cores. That meant you should able to configure 16 cores per VM if your host do have 4 x quad cores today. I am yet to test with 16 cores per VM as my machine is come with 2 x quad cores.

I even try to run a VM with Windows 2008 which contains 8GB memory and 8 virtual cpu assign. The VM is run on local storage on the SATA disk. The performance on the VM is just fast compare to 4 vcpu VM I had in ESX. Again, not to say VMware is not good, and I strongly believe VMware is still the best today, but they are little behind with the delay of more vcpu per VM.

Tags: ESX, quad cores, sata, vcpu, VMware, Windows 2008, Xen, Xensource