http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk Virtualisation, Enterprise Architecture and Software as a Service Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:25:14 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A fascinating insight into how Google have designed their infrastructure, right from server to datacenter.  12V batteries on each server saves them a fortune from UPS inefficiency, and the design is clearly optimised to handle airflow and still manage the density. Stripping a load of the plastic and fittings out saves ... http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/07/google-server-design/ Number one cause of HA errors in VMware is incorrectly configured FQDNs.  If you find that HA is throwing up an error because you forgot a 03 and used 3 for example (hypothetically),  then you need to correct this to get it all working. The hostname command should do the trick, ... http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/07/changing-the-hostname-of-an-esx-host/ Increase the size of the disk presented to the VM using vCenter, then go to disk manager on the VM itself.  You should now see some unused space. Launch diskpart from the command line. list volumes select volume # extend Done! http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/07/extending-virtual-disks-in-windows/ Get all VMs using a certain datastore (in this case one with test in the name), and then show those that are powered off. [vSphere PowerCLI] C:Program FilesVMwareInfrastructurevSphere PowerCLI> get-datastore -name "*test*" | get-vm | wher e { $_.Powerstate -eq "poweredoff" } Name                 PowerState Num CPUs Memory (MB) ----                 ---------- -------- ----------- UPRINTXDM            PoweredOff 1        ... http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/07/powershell-commands/ How to reduce the migration time on a datacenter move to the absolute minimum?  Powershell helps hugely with this as there are a large number of mouse clicks required to re-import the virtual environment.  More details on the move to follow, but for now lets get started. Go and install powershell ... http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/07/getting-started-with-powershell-and-vmware/ Sometimes it is the blindingly obvious that gets you.  After running into issues with creating a mount point for ISO images to be used by the host servers, we ran into a couple of problems. Firstly, -t smbfs now appears to be deprecated, so -t cifs should be used instead. Secondly, smbclient ... http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/06/troubleshooting-esx4-smbclient-mount-error-111/ First installation of production ESX4 is almost completed now for a client in Washington DC.  I'll be adding more notes documenting the following: general installation and configuration iSCSI & EqualLogic setup and performance tuning Alerting and management Troubleshooting http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/06/vsphere-esx4-installation/ If you're ever trying to remove a load of files from a folder that exceeds the number that can be run against a command (this is actually a compiled in memory limit on command line parameters, if you're really keen you can recompile and increase the limit), then try this ... http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/04/argument-list-too-long/ We were very happy to help a good friend of ours with his website, Ignition Driving School with a conversion from a flat PHP structure to something to help Mark expand it more easily. With instructors throughout the country, the site seems to be growing nicely. Check them out at www.ignitiondrivingschool.com http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/04/abbott-internet-help-ignition-driving-school/ I ran a virtualisation seminar yesterday for our friends at NCC and some of their clients.  Covering topics from "what is virtualisation?" to a full discussion of the in and outs of handling the organisation change that it brings, I think it gave a very good grounding for the attendees ... http://www.abbottinternet.co.uk/2009/03/ncc-virtualisation-seminar/