Just a very quick posting on a problem I experienced late last year and have been meaning to post a blog posting on it to hopefully save someone the time i spent trying to work it out.
Late last year I had been battling to connect to our test VMware View 4.5 environment and couldn’t work out the reasons why. Each time I tried to connect to the environment the client would just sit on the connecting phase of the login whereas for my colleagues they could connect perfectly fine.After over a week of speaking with the networking guys and trying loads ideas I decided to do what I should have done in the first place and Google search the problem. Google found me a posting on the VMware communities and the solution right at the bottom of the first page was on the money as I had recently installed Internet Explorer 9 beta and doing the compatibility “fix” did the trick and got it all working again. So if you’ve installed IE9 beta and now your VMware View client just hangs on connecting you know why and how to fix it now
I haven’t tested with VMware View 4.6 so I’m not sure if this will/still apply to it.
Just a very quick reminder that next week Thursday evening is the next instalment of the London vBeers. My aim is to actually try make this one and hopefully meet up with some familiar faces and hopefully some new ones.
If you’ve never heard of vBeers before here is the “official” definition of vBeers:
vBeers is an informal get together of virtualisation enthusiasts and professionals to meet and discuss all things IT. It’s a great opportunity to network, learn and meet like minded people.
Enjoy Talking Virtualization? Come & Socialise at vBeers!
Fancy meeting up every month with other IT virtualization enthusiasts to socialise and chat over a cold beer, wine or soft-drink? If so, then vBeers is for you! This is a great opportunity to meet with other virtualization enthusiasts and professionals and enjoy discussing all things virtualization, and in fact anything else that comes up in conversation…
vBeers is open to everyone so whether you are a VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer user/fan or none of the above it really doesn’t matter as “it’s all about the virtualization”.
The London vBeers meet-up is held at the lovely ole English pub, ‘The Cittie of Yorke’. Details and directions below:
When & Where
The London vBeers is held on the first Thursday of every month starting at 6pm in ‘The Cittie of Yorke’ pub which is placed centrally to both London’s West End and The City. This venue serves a fine of selection of English beers along with soft drinks and bar snacks.
Last week I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the VMware vSphere: Manage For Performance course. I did the lab related to this course at VMworld Europe last year and in my now increasing preparations for the VCAP-DCA exam I knew I needed to strengthen my troubleshooting skills and more importantly fine tuning my ESXTOP/RESXTOP skills. Quite a few people commented that they really liked my VMware vSphere: Manage and Design for Security Course Experience posting so I thought i would try do the same for this one for anyone interested or thinking about booking the course.
Day one covered the first three and a half modules Course Introduction, Performance in a Virtualized Environment, Virtual Machine Monitor and part of CPU Performance. It introduced you to all the monitoring tools you can use with an introduction to the performance graphs in Virtual Centre and ESXTOP,how to utilise these tools to work out possible problems and what to look for that may be good indicators of problems. Probably the thing I enjoyed the most about this course was that there was loads of labs for you to learn how to do it all yourself rather than learning it off a PowerPoint sheet or your course guide. If you are a regular reader of this blog then you’ll know I’ve been trying to perfect my knowledge of ESXTOP/RESXTOP and wrote a blog about it too “Understanding and using ESXTOP/RESXTOP”. This learning of it was a great stepping stone for the skills they covered in the course and for a few parts the links and resources in my blog gave me an even deeper knowledge of ESXTOP. For the virtual machine monitor module it covered Software and hardware virtualisation techniques which i knew fairly well from my studying for my VCP exams and the labs for it were really great in covering how the usage of these varying techniques can really help with the performance of your virtual machines/environment. Next we got into a bit of the CPU Performance module which introduced the CPU scheduler, CPU Cache contention and the NUMA. As with the hardware/software virtualisation techniques i had a good bit of knowledge about the CPU scheduler and NUMA from my VCP studies but it was a great refresher on the NUMA particularly and allowed me to better understand how it works and how the misallocation of resources can impact your virtual machines due to NUMA. Frank Denneman has done two brilliant postings all about the sizing of VM’s and NUMA Nodes and ESX 4.1 NUMA Scheduling which covers pretty much everything you need to know about this feature and how to use it correctly in your environment.
Day 2 we finished off CPU Performance by learning how to use ESXTOP and the performance metrics in vCentre to find and recognise possible cpu problems and how to fix them. Next we covered Memory Performance which was fairly straight forward in my opinion but did give great recommendations on how to utilise your memory effectively and how ballooning and memory swapping works and what the increase of these values means to the performance of your environment. Yet again Frank Denneman has covered these topics brilliantly in two blog postings Memory reclamation, when and how? and Disable ballooning? which I’ll personally be rereading through myself so as to better my understanding of how it can help/impact my virtual machines. Next we did the Network Performance module which covered all the varying network card options you can select,what each allows you to do,what additional features each one gives and how these features work. This was also a refresher for me due to my VCP studies but it did seem to alert a lot of the people on the course with me to the benefits of upgrading all your virtual machines to hardware version 7 and changing their network cards to VMXNET3. VMware have a great KB article on this Choosing a network adapter for your virtual machine. For the rest of the module it was yet again teaching you how to find and troubleshoot possible network problems using the performance charts and ESXTOP.
Day 3 finished off the last three modules Storage Performance,Virtual Machine Performance and Application Performance. Storage performance was good and was very interesting to hear how many people don’t use thin provisioning due to their belief that it impacts performance in certain ways. I’m not going to get into it on here and I agree it does in certain instances but like I said to the people on the course with me I would recommend reading the VMware white paper on it first and make your own decisions from there. There are also loads of top blog postings on the subject so I would also recommend reading a few of those (Duncan Epping’s and Eric Gray’s in particular). For the last two modules of Virtual Machine Performance and Application performance these were essentially just applying what you learn for cpu,memory and network to your virtual machines and what to consider for the virtualising of differing applications.
Funnily enough whilst on the course the latest release of the vSphere performance troubleshooting guide for 4.1 came out which is perfect post course reading material for me. Duncan Epping’s posting alerted me to the release so only right to point to his posting here.
Well that’s a high level review of what I learnt/was covered in the course. As with any course though what you get out of the course is very dependant on your knowledge of the product/s and even though I have a fairly good amount of knowledge on the product and features I did still learn a fair amount and it was a really great refresher on certain features in preparation for my VCAP: DCA exam sitting.
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.
Crunchy numbers
A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 15,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 3 fully loaded ships.
In 2010, there were 56 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 65 posts. There were 64 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was October 26th with 150 views. The most popular post that day was VCAP-DCA & DCD.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were communities.vmware.com, twitter.com, consultingblogs.emc.com, simonlong.co.uk, and jasonnash.wordpress.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for this computer is now hosting the specified directory instance, but active directory web services could not service it. active directory web services will retry this operation periodically. and vcap dcd.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Just a very quick posting to remind those around the London area this Thursday (October 28th 2010) that after the London VMUG there are the customary vBeers happening.If you don’t know about vBeers then the below is just for you 🙂 I’m hoping to make an appearance at vBeers even if for just one beer as unfortunately work commitments mean that I cannot make the VMUG on Thursday.
Also while fiddling around today I noticed the VMworld sessions are now available to view for VMworld Europe attendees like myself. If you are one of the people writing the VCAP-DCD Beta exam then some of the sessions are a brilliant learning resource. If you went to the US one then you should have had access for over a month already. I wasn’t selected as a beta exam writer but when I do start preparing for the exam (after my VCAP-DCA exam) then I’m sure these resources will be brilliant.
vBeers
Is an informal get together of virtualisation enthusiasts and professionals to meet and discuss all things IT. It’s a great opportunity to network, learn and meet like minded people.
Enjoy Talking Virtualization? Come & Socialise at vBeers!
Fancy meeting up every month with other IT virtualization enthusiasts to socialise and chat over a cold beer, wine or soft-drink? If so, then vBeers is for you! This is a great opportunity to meet with other virtualization enthusiasts and professionals and enjoy discussing all things virtualization, and in fact anything else that comes up in conversation…
vBeers is open to everyone so whether you are a VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer user/fan or none of the above it really doesn’t matter as “it’s all about the virtualization”.
The London vBeers meet-up is held at the Pavilion End Pub. Details and directions below:
When & Where
The London vBeers is held on the first Thursday of every month or after a VMUG meeting starting at 6pm in the ‘pavilion end pub’
Yep it’s already time for another vBeers and from the amount of vBeers kicking off around the world it is now becoming the place for all virtualisation geeks to meet up, have a few drinks, talk shop and anything else and stagger home at the end of the night (obviously safely). It is happening TONIGHT so if you are near the London area I would highly recommend trying to make it to the evening, sadly I won’t be able to make it due to pre- VMworld preparations meaning I’m in another office with my car. If you’ve never heard of vBeers before here is the “official” definition of vBeers:
vBeers is an informal get together of virtualisation enthusiasts and professionals to meet and discuss all things IT. It’s a great opportunity to network, learn and meet like minded people.
Enjoy Talking Virtualization? Come & Socialise at vBeers!
Fancy meeting up every month with other IT virtualization enthusiasts to socialise and chat over a cold beer, wine or soft-drink? If so, then vBeers is for you! This is a great opportunity to meet with other virtualization enthusiasts and professionals and enjoy discussing all things virtualization, and in fact anything else that comes up in conversation…
vBeers is open to everyone so whether you are a VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer user/fan or none of the above it really doesn’t matter as “it’s all about the virtualization”.
The London vBeers meet-up is held at the lovely ole English pub, ‘The Cittie of Yorke’. Details and directions below:
When & Where
The London vBeers is held on the first Thursday of every month starting at 6pm in ‘The Cittie of Yorke’ pub which is placed centrally to both London’s West End and The City. This venue serves a fine of selection of English beers along with soft drinks and bar snacks.
Due to my being away last week I’m already a week behind my “Campaigning”. If you read any of the top VMware related blogs I’m sure you’ll know that Eric Siebert is running his Top 25 Virtualization Blogs.
Since I only started this blog in earnest in February I am obviously one of the new kids on the scene but as I’ve stated in my last blog postings my viewership and community visibility has grown an impressive amount(I believe impressive). So if any of my blog posting have helped you fix a problem,linked you to the top blog postings on the week/fortnight or you feel I deserve a vote if i have helped you via twitter or the VMware communities please cast a vote for my blog.I don’t believe I’m anywhere near the top but at least if it gets me in the top 50 or even 75 I’ll be happy.
If anything at least cast a vote for the blogs you do enjoy even if it isn’t my blog as getting onto Eric’s list is a very high honour for a VMware related blogger and there are some amazing blogs out there that deserve your votes.
Gregg
*Update* Hmm it seems you can only select the blogs that Eric feels are worthy of the votes and therefore kills any newcomers like myself actually getting a vote or even being on the list. Personally I think a bit where you could insert a blog which Eric could then approve is legit would have been a fair and obvious option but it seems not so.
Just a very quick posting to remind/inform all of those in and around the London area who weren’t fortunate enough to be allowed to go to VMworld US or like myself are going to the one in Copenhagen that vBeers is tonight. If you’ve never heard of vBeers before here is the “official” definition of vBeers:
vBeers is an informal get together of virtualisation enthusiasts and professionals to meet and discuss all things IT. It’s a great opportunity to network, learn and meet like minded people.
Every month Simon Seagrave and I try organise a social get together of like-minded Virtualization enthusiasts held in a pub in central London. We like to call it vBeers. Before I go on, I would just like to state, although it’s called vBeers, you do NOT have to drink beer or any other alcohol for that matter. This isn’t just an excuse to get blind drunk.
We came up with idea whilst on the Gestalt IT Tech Field Day back in April. We were chatting and we both recognised that we don’t get together enough to catch-up, mostly do to busy work schedules and private lives. We felt that if we had a set date each month, the likely hood of us actually making that date would be higher than previous attempts. So the idea of vBeers was born.
London
The London vBeers is held on the first Thursday of every month starting at 6pm in ‘The Cittie of Yorke’ pub which is placed centrally to both London’s West End and The City. This venue serves a fine of selection of English beers along with soft drinks and bar snacks.
Sadly yet again i can’t make it due to me writing a Microsoft exam early tomorrow morning (blog posting forthcoming on this) and therefore even though extremely tempting from past experiences I know I shouldn’t be going out drinking the night before an exam.
Yep the third vBeers is just around the corner and I’ll be making a concerted effort myself to make this one. If you’ve never heard of vBeers before here is the “official” definition of vBeers:
vBeers is an informal get together of virtualisation enthusiasts and professionals to meet and discuss all things IT. It’s a great opportunity to network, learn and meet like minded people.
Enjoy Talking Virtualization? Come & Socialise at vBeers!
Fancy meeting up every month with other IT virtualization enthusiasts to socialise and chat over a cold beer, wine or soft-drink? If so, then vBeers is for you! This is a great opportunity to meet with other virtualization enthusiasts and professionals and enjoy discussing all things virtualization, and in fact anything else that comes up in conversation…
vBeers is open to everyone so whether you are a VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer user/fan or none of the above it really doesn’t matter as “it’s all about the virtualization”.
The London vBeers meet-up is held at the lovely ole English pub, ‘The Cittie of Yorke’. Details and directions below:
When & Where
The London vBeers is held on the first Thursday of every month starting at 6pm in ‘The Cittie of Yorke’ pub which is placed centrally to both London’s West End and The City. This venue serves a fine of selection of English beers along with soft drinks and bar snacks.
Yes I decided to get rid of the roman numerals and go with the old trusty numbers from now on as I think it looks better and it’s more user friendly for the five people who read these posts 🙂
It’s been two weeks since the last All things virtual posting due to work constraints and my studying for my MCITP: Enterprise Administrator exam. Unfortunately the exam was cancelled unbeknownst to me so I’ve had to reschedule for a few weeks time (i know loads of people are going to think I just failed and don’t want to say it but I’d honestly say it if I had). Anyhow since it’s been two weeks since the last version there has been loads of really top class postings and information to have come up in the virtualisation arena.
Firstly as I said in my posting yesterday the second vBeers is happening TOMORROW,July the 1st. I was fortunate enough to have made it to the first one and it was awesome to meet and chat to loads of the guys I follow and chat to via twitter,their blogs(My blogroll holds my favourites) the VMware Community forums or in the VMware community roundtables. If you’re near the London area tomorrow evening I’d highly recommend going along.
Next is a brilliant posting by Duncan Epping of Yellow Bricks all about troubleshooting and recognising is a vm is swapping and if so how to work it out as it isn’t as simple as looking and seeing if the SWCUR value in esxtop is giving out values. As I stated in my blog posting a few weeks back I’m learning to use ESXTOP and better my skills in using this tool to manage my environments and be able to spot these kinds of things via this tool.
Eric Sloof blogged all about the release of the Maximum vSphere book. The book was written by Simon Seagrave of Techhead fame and Eric Siebert of vsphere-land.com fame. Simon wrote the chapters on ‘Performance in vSphere’ and ‘Building Your Own vSphere Lab’ and Eric wrote all the remaining chapters. John Troyer has also written the forward for the book. I haven’t personally read Eric’s VMware® VI3 Implementation and Administration book but these guys are top of the industry and their blogs are some of the best out there so you know the content is going to be amazing. Hopefully I can get my hands on a copy of this once it’s released.
As I blogged almost a month ago now about the latest versions of vCentre and vSphere having been released, Update 2. Chad Sakac of Virtual Geek fame posted a brilliant write up all about the release also and has added some very helpful fixes to issues that may arise from updating to update 2. I’ve managed to update most of my home test environment to update 2 but unfortunately haven’t had the time to fully play with /break it yet. Talking of new versions William Lam of Virtually Ghetto fame has posted a very interesting posting all about the possible imminent release of vSphere 4.1. If rumours are true then this release will be the non COS release. Kind of crazy to put an update out then release a new version in my opinion especially for all of us that have to keep environments up to date whilst not breaking anything in the process. Jason Boche of Boche.net did a nice little posting all about how a simple Google search gives plenty of proof that the COS is going away.Duncan Epping also posted that DRS sub clusters are supposedly due tin the next version also.
A fair number of the guys and I’m friendly with and/or follow on twitter were fortunate enough to have been invited to take the VCAP-DCA beta exams over a week ago now . Jason Boche, William Lam and Chris Dearden are a few that I noticed who blogged about it and from their comments and rants it sounds as if the exam is going to be a real test and that to pass this you are going to need to have used,played,configured and fully understand all the technologies and features that the vSphere family of products have to offer. Even though this means I’m probably going to end up spending innumerable hours playing around with my lab(which i kind of do out of nerdy fun already anyways) and also means that people can’t just learn answers to questions from cheat sites and post 500 out of 500 scores even though they misspell VMware and will hopefully also help me to increase my skills and knowledge which is what all exams/certifications should do for you.
One of the biggest banes of any VMware administrators life is the managing and controlling of snapshots especially if you allow them to be created by the users of the vm’s as i have to in our environment. I’ve posted before all about the great ways I use to ease the management and monitoring of VMware Snapshots. Last week Mike Bean posted a brilliant guest posting in the VMware communities blogs all about VMware snapshots and what they are meant for and what they are not meant for and how they are created and maintained. I’ve saved this one to my favourites as it’s got all the reasons you need to explain to a user in why they can’t have five snapshots on one vm and keep it for months on end.
Duncan Epping posted all about the new SIOC (Storage IO Control) feature due to released in most likely the next version of vSphere. I had seen this video before the posting as it was obviously all over twitter very quickly and I’m really excited and pleased that this feature is coming.
Last but not least a big congratulations to Simon Long in his announcement that he is joining VMware as a Senior Consultant. Wow if memory serves me right that takes him from being made redundant and looking for a role to being a VMware employee in 12 months!! Congrats Simon!
![vBeers[7]](https://i0.wp.com/www.techhead.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/vBeers7.jpg "vBeers[7]")
Fancy meeting up every month with other IT virtualization enthusiasts to socialise and chat over a cold beer, wine or soft-drink? If so, then vBeers is for you! This is a great opportunity to meet with other virtualization enthusiasts and professionals and enjoy discussing all things virtualization, and in fact anything else that comes up in conversation…
TheSaffaGeek 
