Demitasse

Yesterday I attended the simply Virtualise seminar in Auckland.  As far as I know this is the first time Xensource has presented in NZ. 

It was interesting to see the product, however briefly, in action.  As usual the server isn’t very interesting and the real action is in the management console.  The console looked nice enough , but quite simple.  Definitely something to have a play with for small sites or maybe branch offices.

John Glendenning from Xensource outlined the company history and the current product range as well as a little of the future.  As expected the future is all about virtualising Microsoft servers.  What I wasn’t aware of is that Xen started as an English (Cambridge University) research project in the same way that VMware started as a research project at Stamford University in the US. 

Also present were:

Express Data talking about their plans for XenSource distribution and a fairly small and committed partner channel.  James Johnston ran the demonstration as well as allowing John to talk some more about the Xensource products.

Microsoft had Bruce Chamberlain talking all things virtualised, particularly talking Desktop, Server, Presentation (terminal services) and application (soft grid) virtualisation.  Outside of the session Bruce was reminding people that virtualisation isn’t always the right answer, i.e. a heavily loaded SQL server or and Exchange server serving 2000 mailboxes probably demands a dedicated server.  It is important to remember that just because you can do it and it’s the latest buzz doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

Sun to showcase their x86 server line, with Barry Trotman enthusing about the possibilities of the kit.

PlateSpin to tell us how great PowerRecon and PowerConvert are.  I particularly liked the perpetual license for PowerConvert to allow DR backups of physical or virtual servers using delta change replication to remote storage.  Another product to play with as time permits.

The interesting thing remains seeing so many familiar faces, colleagues and competitors.

I had a brief chat with a lady from a central north island power company that had implimented Xensource as their virtualisation platform, by all accounts a successfull implimentation by NSP

Looks like it’s time to play, unfortunately that means an upgrade to a PC with 64bit extensions, maybe it’s time for a play laptop as well as the one I use to deliver training.  Any suggestions on the best laptop with Intel VT support?

The latest version of VMware’s Physical to Virtual (P2V) product has been christened VMware Converter.

I’ve been spending some time looking at the Enterprise version, which is available to all licensed VI3 customers.

From VMware Server

One of the things that the VI3 Install & Config class says about VMware Server is that it provides an easy upgrade path to ESX, previously I was unconvinced.  Having used converter I’m now convinced.  A Windows 2003 Server VM on VM Server converted to ESX server quickly and easily.  The VM was shutdown & the converter run on the machine that was it’s host, the converter created the VM in the Virtual Centre and copied the disk files to the nominated ESX server.  The VM was then started on the destination, powered on and had VMtools installed.  Very simple and straightforward and all achieved in less than the allocated outage window for the VM.

From Physical machine

After the success with the VMserver to ESX I was keen to do a real physical to virtual.  Since the only physical I have lying around is my Virtual Center I gave that a go.  Just as with the VM conversion all went with the conversion, installing VMware tools and the reboot.  However on logging onto the server it was apparent that the server’s static IP address had not come through into the VM, not great since it is a DC and DNS server!  After manually setting the IP address all appears well again.

Of course since I wasn’t happy with the first migration & then reran a day later I efectively had a USN rollback to I had to follow http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875495 to demote the DC after the second migration & re-dcpromo it back in.  Let that be a warning about migrating DC’s, it’s a one time process if the migrated DC comes up on the production network.

I tried some further migrations & every time I cold migrate the destination VM has a dynamic IP address where the source had static & worse the VM still has the hardware & IP config for the physical machine.  To get rid of the leftover devices, which can also cause performance ssues in the VM, follow http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms791334.aspx to show the devices in Device Manager and then uninstall each non-present device.  I thought that this was part of the P2V process, how wrong I was.

Summary

VMware Converter is a much better P2V than the previous P2V but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.  I guess that’s why there are other vendor’s products in the market.  Hopefully I’ll do some trialling on the current versions of these products soon

The annual Technology Solutions Exchange is comming to Sydney (Australia) next month.Â\  The dates are May 9th and 10th and it will be held at the Marriott Sydney Harbour.

This is the best VMware technical event run in Australia so I expect to see a few familiar faces from my classes there.  I stayed at the hotel last time I was in Sydney and enjoyed the place, I’ll be staying again for this conference.

The web site for registration is here:  Sydney TSX Registration

Look forward to seeing you there.

This blog belongs to Alastair Cooke of Demitasse Ltd

The aim of this blog is to record interesting stuff in the Virtualisation and server based computing world.