By Clement DeLarge on July 23rd, 2010
ESXi vs. ESX – warning, this is a rant! 
I recently participated in a discussion thread on LinkedIn in the VMware Certified Professionals group that got to be a little lively. In this discussion, outside of the original poster’s question, a side discussion began on ESXi vs. ESX and all the trouble that it entails. One poster in particular, a former VMware TSE (tech support engineer), really preached doom and gloom about the product’s future with the announced phase out of ESX and transition and continuation of ESXi as the VMware flagship product.
I personally have mixed feelings about the decision. I love ESX and have been working with the product for years now. I like the accessibility and control that the service console provides and thus far have been willing to tolerate the overhead of the Console Operating System (COS) and some of the associated problems as a trade-off for the control that it provides. Apparently there are people that are far more upset about this decision by the powers-that-be at VMware than I am though, and in one case the former TSE even said that he would look forward to seeing people ‘crumble’ when they have problems with ESXi and no console access. As I’m running this blog, and try to provide information and help to people at their fingertips, I would never wish ill on my fellow techies or the organizations that employ them. Well maybe a few… <grin>.
Continue reading ESXi Going Forward, Is It Really All Doom and Gloom? →
By Clement DeLarge on June 26th, 2010
I decided to sign up for Microsoft Connect and download the Windows Home Server “Vail” public preview and install it in my lab vSphere lab. I recently picked up an Iomega ix4-200 and had some extra space so I wanted to try to streaming media and backup functionality.
After Windows (Server 2008 R2) installed, and the WHS configuration wizard started running, it would error out at 36% or 37% consistently. It would post an error, and instruct me to reboot and contact the vendor if the error continued. Hmm… contacting Microsoft about a beta, yehrite, and I’m impatient so I didn’t feel like posting on the forums and trying to wait for a response what would likely be a dance of posting log files etc. I so I went into reinstall / reboot hell.
After numerous reboots, rebuilds, and a successful VMware Workstation deployment (yes I actually wondered if Microsoft put something in the bits to keep it from being installed on VMware… hahah), I tracked down the issue. In the installation guide it says to use a hard drive that has a minimum of 160GB of space. I made a drive that had exactly 160GB. This was the problem. The successful workstation VM I created had a hard drive of 165GB. I went back and increased the size of the vSphere VM to 165GB and voila! Success. Hopefully this saves someone some time and trouble with virtualizing WHS “Vail”.
Good luck!
By Clement DeLarge on June 24th, 2010
This applies to virtual switches that have already been created.
I was trying to do this earlier this evening and found a few articles that talked about various methods to enable jumbo frame support on a vSwitch. After reading some of the ‘hacks’ that are being used, I decided to dig into PowerCLI. Amazingly enough, the solution is so simple that maybe it’ll get some of the people working with vSphere to move into PowerCLI further. Here’s the 30 second or less solution to the issue. As I wrote above, this applies for a vSwitch that’s already been created, but you can create a vSwitch with all the specifications you need from PowerCLI as well just the New-VirtualSwitch commandlet.
> $vs = Get-VirtualSwitch –name vSwitchX
> Set-VirtualSwitch –VirtualSwitch $vs –mtu 9000
> Get-VirtualSwitch –name vSwitchX
If you’re not familiar with PowerShell, get familiar with it. It’s an excellent product and is expandable so many IT products are moving toward a PowerShell interface for its ease of use.
Continue reading Enable Jumbo Frame Support in vSphere Using PowerCLI in 30 Seconds. →
By Clement DeLarge on May 18th, 2010
I’ve been experimenting with creating a good Windows Server 2008 R2 template for VMware vSphere 4 and wondered just how many times Microsoft would allow an activation on the same MSDN license key (Multiple Activation) for the OS. I often deploy multiple servers at a time and am always fearful of activating since I don’t want the key to be shut off. Typically I only run these servers for short periods of time so not activating is no big deal, however in longer running projects I often have no choice but to either activate or destroy and redeploy. With information that I’ve come across on the Internet, I’ve managed to consolidate a method that does not break the Windows Server 2008 activation, while still sysprep’ing and generating a new SID.
This process can be used for other virtualized environments as well I’m sure, but in this case I created it for VMware vSphere.
Continue reading Creating an Activated Windows Server 2008 R2 VMware Template using Microsoft Sysprep →
By Clement DeLarge on April 21st, 2010
Some firewalls now have a new feature (or not so new), unbeknownst to most web users: The little lock in your browser that shows that you are using a secure connection is not what it used to be.
When you make a secure connection to a web site, your bank for example, and you see the little lock appear, that is an indicator that your browser is connecting to and exchanging information with a server through a secure, certificate based channel. Behind the scenes, some encryption keys are exchanged and the information that you are transmitting and that is being transmitted back to you is encrypted and not easily readable by others. That perception of safety is the basis of all financial, as well as other, transactions on the Internet and you as the consumer believe when you see that lock, your information is safe.
There’s a lot that happens and can happen in between you and the server that you’re communicating with. To illustrate what I’m talking about, here is a simplified diagram of a typical network configuration. Using the example of a bank:
You can click the image above to enlarge it. Your computer connects to your bank through firewalls. The close firewall protects your network and the firewall on the bank’s end protects their network. The is typically a certificate installed on the bank’s firewall and server that allow you to establish a secure connection to that server.
Continue reading SSL Sniffing – How Safe Is Your Information? →
By Clement DeLarge on April 21st, 2010
Do it right the first time!
There’s quite a few posts on Team Foundation Server 2010 (TFS) and how to install and configure it, as well as a really good CHM file from Microsoft on the same topics, so I won’t go through duplicating what everyone else has done and will link to one at the bottom of this post. I’m writing this just to relay the experience I had with getting the product configured just the way I wanted it, or some facsimile thereof and some lessons learned.
After viewing some videos on YouTube of TFS, reading some of the Microsoft marketing material, and some of the posts on it, I decided to stand up TFS in my environment to see how well it works and to explore changes since the last version. Right now, the team I lead isn’t really using any ‘set’ collaborative product. We tend to work in small teams on projects so the need isn’t really there, though I’m sure the organization wouldn’t hurt. We’re currently using Subversion as our source repository and occasionally use MOSS or WSS to collaborate. Otherwise it’s phone calls and emails since we also tend to bounce around the country. Enough background, on to TFS installation…
After reading through a few blog posts and Microsoft’s documentation on how to install and configure TFS, I stood up a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM and installed SQL Server 2008. I was going with a single server install. I followed the documentation to the letter for a single server install, and everything worked out just fine. WONDERFUL! GREAT! So far…
Continue reading Team Foundation Server 2010 Installation Experiences and Lessons Learned →
By Clement DeLarge on April 17th, 2010
This is a quick post, or maybe not so quick, just to illustrate how to create and add records to a DNS zone on your own Windows Server with the DNS role configured. This server can be a domain controller with DNS installed or just a DNS server, it doesn’t make any difference.
A quick primer on DNS. DNS, or domain name servers (services), provides the ability for servers to access systems by name instead of IP address. Without DNS servers, we would all have to navigate the Internet by typing in IP addresses, like http://74.125.19.99. From reading this link, you’d have no idea where you were navigating to, but it just so happens that this is one of Google’s many public IP addresses. Try it.
Continue reading Creating and Managing a DNS Zone Using Windows Server + Quick DNS Primer →
By Clement DeLarge on April 13th, 2010
Have you tried rebooting?
I ran across an issue on Windows Server 2008 R2 but also found the issue to happen on Windows 7 installations.
Apparently this will be fixed in the R2 releases of SQL but since those aren’t available yet for the enterprise and similar versions, there’s a pretty simple fix. I found an article that references a few fixes that I’ll link to here in case the fix that I have doesn’t work.
The error states that “Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created.”
Continue reading SQL Server 2008 Installer Fails on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 →
By Clement DeLarge on January 30th, 2010
Havoc \Hav"oc\, v. t. To devastate; to destroy; to lay waste. [1913 Webster]
I’ve seen some really negative reviews on the iPad and it’s potential and feature set. I’ve talked to some friends about it, mostly PC users, that are less than thrilled with what the iPad has to offer. I can understand people potentially not wanting to go out and jump on the boat immediately due to costs, but the shortsightedness of the negative reviewers never ceases to amaze me.
Continue reading The iPad, to wreak havoc on current tech? →
By Clement DeLarge on December 7th, 2009
As I’ve upgraded my lab environment to vSphere over the weekend, I’ve been running across the occasional VM that fails to allow me to upgrade it’s VMware Tools. This seems to be predominantly happening with my Windows Server 2008 VMs.
I’ve received various error messages including ‘can’t find vmware tools.msi’ looking at c:\windows\installers, and messages stating that Installation cannnot continue because a previous version is installed, even though it had just been removed. FRUSTRATING! Fortunately, this isn’t the first time people are running across it and there’s a VMware KB article on how to address this.
Issues as noted on the VMware KB:
- Unable to upgrade existing VMware Tools
- Unable to upgrade existing installation of VMware Tools because the previous installation fails to be removed
- The uninstall feature of VMware Tools fails to complete, and finally
- Cannot uninstall VMware Tools.
All this boils down to ‘IT’S BROKE! HOW CAN I FIX IT!?’
Keep Reading…
Continue reading VMware Tools Fail During Upgrade / Uninstall →
