Housekeeping Utilities for VMware
Housekeeping defined
Housekeeping is preparing meals for oneself and family and the managing of other domestic concerns. It is also the care and control of property ensuring its maintenance and proper use and appearance. A caretaker or janitor does housekeeping. In a private home a woman is employed to do the housekeeping.
Reference Wikipedia – 1961 Websters Third New International Dictionary
2
11 June 2009
Monitoring Required in a Virtual World
Free space of Datastores Free space of Service Consoles List of orphaned snapshots List of long running snapshots Failed (automatic) VMotions VMware tools running in hosts Size of VC database Monitor CPU READY (ms) or CPU %READY per VM per host Monitor %CPU BUSY percentages per VM per host Monitor network and disk I/O usage per VM per Host Monitor service console memory swap usage Monitor VM balloon memory and swap usage Host downtime reporting Server hardware faults (power supplies, fans, IO cards, disks, CPUs, RAM) SAN hardware faults (disks and vendor specific)
Virtual Management tasks we need to know
Create a new virtual machine Place a new virtual machine within the virtual infrastructure into a Production state. This may be identical to the physical server commissioning procedure. Place an ESX server into and then out of maintenance mode, migrating the guests onto other ESX Server hosts. Contact VMware for support. It should include contact information and specify contact methods as well as means of collecting information. Add a LUN to an existing ESX server cluster. Patch a template used for creating virtual machines. Create a snapshot of a virtual machine. Restore the virtual machine state to its previous state at the start of the snapshot. Investigating user reported virtual machine performance issues. What to check and how to respond. Add a disk to an existing virtual machine. Expand the size of an existing disk for a virtual machine. Shrink a disk used by a virtual machine. Remove a disk from a virtual machine. Decommission a virtual machine.
Migrate (VMotion) a virtual machine between ESX Server hosts in the same ESX cluster. Build an ESX server. Add an ESX server into an existing ESX cluster. Migrate a virtual machine between ESX Server hosts in the different ESX clusters (i.e. between datacenters). Confirm that a SAN link is active, to be used after a SAN link has failed and been restored. Confirm that a network link is active, to be used after a network link has failed and been restored. Enable the network group to troubleshoot user reported network / performance issues. Backing up/restoring VMs (VM-level and filelevel). Backing up/restoring VirtualCenter database. Backing up/restoring license server files (or keys). Restoring VirtualCenter Server. Restoring ESX hosts.
Tools for your toolbox
VI3 Snaphunter & Snapalert can report all running snapshots on ESX hosts including name, size and date. Storage VMotion Plug-in – A VI client plug-in that extends the client’s functionality by providing an integrated , graphical tool that can be used to invoke storage VMotion operations VMotion info - A program that will collect Vendor, Model, CPU Types and the CPU feature bits from all hosts to check for VMotion compatibility Tripwire ConfigCheck – Quickly assesses the security of ESX 3.5 configurations compared to the VI3 Security Hardening guidelines. Health Check Script – Healthcheck is a Powershell script that reports information like snapshots, VMware tools version, datastore space, CDROM and/or floppy drives connected, VM details etc. to HTML and e-mail the output. RVTools – is able to list information about cpu, memory, disks, nics, cd-rom, floppy drives, snapshots, VMware tools, ESX hosts, datastores and health checks KS QuickConfig – GUI to help create ESX build scripts
vSphere Upgrade
vCenter upgrade
Backup database and SSL certificates Database schema upgrade occurs before vCenter upgrade New vSphere client License server no longer required
Host Upgrade
vSphere Host Update Utility vCenter Update Manager (create server baselines) Offline upgrade via script No VMFS upgrade required rollback-to-esx3 script cleanup-esx3 script
Virtual Machine upgrade
Must upgrade VMware tools before upgrading virtual hardware Windows requires three reboots Version 7 VMs created by default with version 4 available by using the custom path
vCenter Data Recovery
Fast Disk-based backup and recovery Deployed as a Virtual Machine appliance with a VI Client plug-in Restore individual files or entire images File level full and incremental backup VSS support Multiple restore points for each virtual machine HA, VMotion and DRS aware De-duplicated backup store Supports any type of storage, FC, iSCSI, NAS or local storage
Wizard driven workflow
vCenter Data Recovery
LIVE DEMO!
vCenter CapacityIQ
Capacity management solution for VMware vCenter, enabling users to analyze, forecast, and plan capacity needs of their virtual datacenter
Benefits
Deliver the right capacity at the right time Make informed planning, purchasing, and provisioning decisions Enable capacity to be utilized most efficiently and cost-effectively
Key Features
Perform “What-If” impact analysis to model effect of capacity changes Identify and reclaim unused capacity Forecast timing of capacity shortfalls and needs
CapacityIQ: Overview
Analysis Engine
Capacity Dashboard VM Profiling Capacity Modeling
Virtual Datacenter Capacity Plan
vCenter Database Capacity Management Database
CapacityIQ: Screenshots
CapacityIQ: Screenshots
CapacityIQ: Screenshots
CapacityIQ: Screenshots
vCenter Chargeback
Account, monitor, and report on costs associated with your virtual infrastructure Benefits
Improve Resource Utilization: By associating costs to VM’s many of the “free” VM’s will go away, freeing up resources for higher priorities Optimization of Budgets: Business units can understand how much they are paying for resources and how much goes to unused, allowing them to optimize resource consumption & costs
Key Features
Fixed, allocation, and utilization based costing Charge different amounts for tiers of infrastructure Schedule reports & email results
vCenter Chargeback: Overview
Cost Accounting & Monitoring
Cost Configuration
Cost Modeling
Chargeback Hierarchy
Web Browser
API Chargeback Database 3rd Party Reports/Bills
vCenter Chargeback: Screenshots
vCenter Chargeback: Screenshots
vCenter Chargeback: Screenshots
Thank You