On the heels of the release of the VMware® vSphere™ 4 platform, this discussion focuses on the broad range of features for enterprise IT that are available in an OS for building internal, private clouds that deliver IT services to help automate and optimize data centers. Learn more about vSphere benefits for virtualization, server consolidation, high availability, data recovery, energy efficiency, and other platform features.

Featured Guest Speakers:

  • Bill Henderson- VMware, Inc. / Strategic Alliances - Dell / Staff Systems Engineer
  • Todd Muirhead- VMware, Inc. / Server Performance / Staff Engineer
  • Keith Matteson- Dell Inc. / Hypervisor Enablement Engineering / Virtualization SW Strategist
  • Balasubramanian Chandrasekaran- Dell Inc. / Virtualization Solutions Engineering / Systems Engineer
  • Dushyant Dwibedy- Dell Inc. / Virtualization Solutions Engineering / Systems Engineer
  • Puneet Dhawan- Dell Inc. / Virtualization Solutions Engineering / Engineering Consultant

Technical Community - Background Reading and Learning Opportunities

Duncan Epping has put together an extensive list of vSphere links at Yellow-Bricks.com. And of course, you can always go to the source at VMware.com.

Or better yet, sign up for a Dell learning course on vSphere. Dell Education Services is a Global VMware Authorized Training Center (VATC) and can take you on a deep dive into the new features that vSphere brings.

Dell’s What’s New with vSphere course is a two-day, hands-on Live-On-Line (LOL) course that explores new features in VMware vCenter Server 4 and ESX/ESXi 4, as well as how to upgrade to VMware vSphere 4.

Learn to:

  • Migrate VM storage from one physical machine to another—while it’s still live!
  • Grow volumes while they are still live.
  • Manage a bunch of vCenter servers from the same client.
  • Green things up with VMware Distributed Power Management and save money!
  • Of course, you’ll learn to upgrade your infrastructure from version 3 to vSphere.
  • And much more!

Go to this link to learn more and save your seat in this class:
http://tinyurl.com/new-vsphere


Chat Transcript

depping Scott, do you know of any servers with 10GbE onboard NICs?
Dell-ScottH Nothing down on the motherboard yet
depping And if not, when can we expect them? Especially my 10GbE customers would love them. Now they have a mixture of 1GbE and 10GbE, which makes flexibility and redundancy limited
Dell-ScottH Public forum; can't answer...try twisting my arm
depping Ha ha ha I will...
KongY-Dell Hello Todd, Duncan, and Gawne
KongY-Dell Welcome Jeff :)
Dell-ScottH Kong!
KongY-Dell And of course, leading the way is the old timer, Scott H. :)
KongY-Dell Hi Bala
Dell-ScottH Hello Bala!
VirtualTodd Hey Bala, how goes it?
balacs_-_Dell Hello Kong and Scott
KongY-Dell Bala is a lead engineer from our Dell VSE team
KongY-Dell Hi there Duncan
Dell-ScottH Hey Bill, welcome!
bhenderson Hey guys
KongY-Dell Welcome Bill
KongY-Dell Bill is the Alliance Senior Staff Engineer from VMware to Dell
Dell-ScottH X08 is stamped on the board
Theron_Conrey Hey Scott
KongY-Dell @duncan, I had a question for you about thin provisioning
KongY-Dell BTW, that link and discussion that you had at yellow-bricks.com was awesome
DELL-d_glynn Crowded already
Theron_Conrey Gabesvirtualworld spamming twitter ;)
KongY-Dell Welcome D_glynn
erson I assume this it the chat were I'm going to regret going with Hyper-V? :)
Theron_Conrey Of course not
GabesVirtualWorld.com Yeah I receive free Dell servers for every guest I drag into the chat room
depping Shoot Kong
GabesVirtualWorld.com Hyper-what?
Theron_Conrey This is the Hyper-V deployment strategy session Gabes was talking about right?! ;)
KongY-Dell Trying to find the link to your blog post
DELL-d_glynn Hi Kong
GabesVirtualWorld.com No, Hyper-V therapy session
depping http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/06/02/thats-why-i-love-blogging/
Theron_Conrey Oooohhh
GabesVirtualWorld.com It’s like an AA meeting; you want to stay away from it :-)
Theron_Conrey Depping, did you ever set up your feeds for categories on your blog?
depping No, should I? And if so, why?
KongY-Dell Yes that's the one
Theron_Conrey @depping: http://is.gd/mxu0
KongY-Dell Loved the discussion and Satyam Vaghani's response
Theron_Conrey @depping, that was comedy gold
KongY-Dell So my question is, if there is no performance difference between 1 M block size and 8 M block size, why give the user an option at all?
KongY-Dell Welcome Dushyant
KongY-Dell Welcome Greg_ashbaugh and Papacheops
depping There's no performance difference at all
greg_ashbaugh Thanks
KongY-Dell Usually, VMware's defaults are pretty solid for most environments
KongY-Dell Welcome Kents
depping I think legacy is the reason, but like Scott typed above, can't go into the details on a public forum. Are you under NDA?
Dell-ScottH Hey Greg, Kent, Papacheops, and Sudhir!
Dell-ScottH Greg, I'm thinking about buying one of your vases, for real
DELL-KentS G'day
Dell-ScottH Hey Josh!
greg_ashbaugh Thanks, Scott, buy eight of them :)
bhenderson Hey Josh
jdonelson Hello everyone!
balacs_-_Dell Hey Todd, you had earlier mentioned that VMware has published lot of performance studies done around vSphere. Can you please send us the links? Is it in VMware blogs?
Dell-ScottH Hey Keith and Tony
KongY-Dell @depping, understood and yes I am :)
KongY-Dell Hi Josh. Welcome Tony
depping Drop me an e-mail Kongy
bhenderson I invited Josh...just because he always has interesting things to say about vSphere
Theron_Conrey @dell-scotth, seriously...like last year, my recommendation is more than one laptop mini 10 or the like would be better than one monster box raffled off
jdonelson I have nothing else interesting to say, usually, but vSphere inspires me :)
lynxbat Hello nerds :)
brennels Hey look, Virtual Todd is back...Hi Todd
Dell-ScottH Hello fellow nerd
erson Great to see lots of people in the chat today
Dell-ScottH :-)
VirtualTodd Hey Brace, good to see you
Theron_Conrey @dell-scotth, multiple raffles, throughout the day, MPBTW blah blah blah
KongY-Dell Tony Hoff is an education services consulting manager. He has a Dell vSphere course...check it out: http://tinyurl.com/new-vsphere
erson Is there a record number?
Dell-ScottH Hello Review, Brace, Andy, Ceri, Jean, D_steven, El_notcho, Dbotllp, and Puneet!
Dell-ScottH Wow! What a crowd
KongY-Dell Alright, let's get started
Dell-ScottH Reminder to right-click on links, or you get thrown from the chat
ceri Yeah :-)
Dell-ScottH Alright, so we have a quorum? Kong, kick this thing off!
lynxbat We should make up a game. The "chat toss"
KongY-Dell Welcome Puneet. He's a systems consultant from Dell's VSE team
lynxbat See how many we can toss each chat session
Dell_PuneetDhawan Thanks Kong!
KongY-Dell Welcome everyone to our TechTuesday chat
Dell-ScottH @lynxbat, I'll keep score
KongY-Dell Today's topic is Dell and VMware vSphere 4. Today we have quite a few distinguished speakers with us
KongY-Dell From VMware we have Todd Muirhead and Bill Henderson
Dell_KeithM Typers really
KongY-Dell From Dell we have Bala C., Dushyant D., Puneet D., and Keith M.
Dell-ScottH And don't forget to welcome Jeff to the TechCenter! Dell-jeffs aka @sanpenguin on twitter
bhenderson Howdy everyone
KongY-Dell BTW, Keith is our virtualization software strategist
VirtualTodd I work on the server performance team at VMware; I've been testing with Exchange on vSphere most recently
Dell-JeffS Someone had to take the “new guy” title from Kong
KongY-Dell We also have a ton of virtual friends from the community
Dell-ScottH Welcome fozzman and lamw...FYI, you can use Action, Recent Room History to catch up on the chat
DavidSzp Virtualtodd, I like the picture of you in the Dell TechCenter on Twitpic :-)
KongY-Dell Thanks to Depping, Lynxbat, Hoosiercab, Erson for stopping by
VirtualTodd The one where I'm in the wookie suit?
KongY-Dell If I missed you, I apologize :) Welcome Bruce Eric
Dell-ScottH @davidszp, yeah he didn't want any photos, but I wanted proof he was here
DavidSzp Virtualtodd, the one where you are hanging out with a blade in your hand I think
Dell-ScottH Welcome Bruce
bruceericatdell Good afternoon all
Dell-ScottH Thanks to all the great resources from VMware and Dell helping out in the chat today
KongY-Dell Lastly, welcome Jeffs to the Dell TechCenter
Dell-ScottH Couple of starter things
KongY-Dell He's our storage uber guru
erson Ooh, there's a scrollbar on the user list
Dell-ScottH Feel free to ask questions at any time; it’s not rude to interrupt in the chat. Kong will answer them all :-)
Dell_KeithM Good to see its a popular topic
lynxbat Thanks Kong. You’re a trooper
Dell-ScottH You can click the undock button to expand the window
VirtualTodd I count 41 in the chat currently; must be a record
Dell-ScottH And today's chat is recorded, so say cool things to get us up in the Google rankings :-)
DavidSzp Virtualtodd, it's due to so many Dell_ people :-)
KongY-Dell I forgot to mention Josh D. He's a staff engineer at VMware and big-time UT fan :)
Dell-ScottH Welcome Msi-chris
bhenderson It’s the topic!
jdonelson Hook 'em
Dell-ScottH Whoops, meant Float/Unfloat button
dboftlp Hook'em!
KongY-Dell Welcome moo2102
DavidSzp @scotth, it wouldn't be fair to game the Google rankings by pretending we were going to talk about naked, nude sexy models right? ;-)
jdonelson I'd like to hear any thoughts from our user community; anyone using/evaluating vSphere and what are your thoughts?
bhenderson Geez, there are UT folks everywhere
Dell-ScottH Welcome moo2102 and Guest_16
Dell-ScottH @davidszp, lol
Guest_16 vSphere is on two of my clusters already, 1 two-system PowerEdge 2900 based, and 1 four-system PowerEdge R905 based. Quite smooth
dboftlp UT = kind of a big school (/big deal) =P
Dell_KeithM Running ESX classic or ESX embedded, Guest16?
DELL-TonyH Lol what was that?
lynxbat <- Pushing the *mute* button
Dell-ScottH Nooo, let’s wait for the sounds till the end of the chat
DavidSzp @tonyh, just me using the sounds in moderation so I can stay :-)
lynxbat <- Sits next to CFO
KongY-Dell Anyone got questions about the new features of vSphere? Thin provisioning, distributed network, DPM, etc.?
Guest_16 ESX. They were using ESX 3.5 prior to the upgrade, and had the Dell tools loaded as well. With 4.0, no tools yet (of course). Figured better to just stick with the classic instead of redoing the clusters from scratch
bhenderson Guest_16, what features are you using? FT [VMware Fault Tolerence]?
DavidSzp I was about to install vSphere a week and a half ago, and then realized Veeam Backup wasn't updated so I stopped. It's ready to go, and Veeam's released an update, but no time to test yet!
Guest_16 Was looking forward to the new promise of lowered overhead on the hypervisor
PapaCheops Hi all. Long-time VMware VI user. Currently on vServer 2.5u4/ESX 3.5u4 on PowerEdge 1855 DC and PowerEdge 1955 QC, back ended on Netapp 3040s. Mainly virtual Windows servers, running Microsoft SQL 2005 and Lotus Notes (no Exchange) and 67 production VMs and 24 test/development VMs. Looking to upgrade to vSphere 4, and got sideswiped by vSphere's requirement for 64-bit hardware, which means the 1855s have to go. So, recently, I've been looking to replace our 1855s with used 1955s. In addition, (and unfortunately) our existing Test VI systems (used specifically for VMware upgrade testing) are all based off PowerEdge 2850 and PowerEdge 2650s, so no opportunity to test the upgrade either
GabesVirtualWorld.com Not very Dell related but came up in a discussion this afternoon. Are ESXi loggings still only in UTC time?
ceri I'm interested in finding out if anyone can think of a real use case for FT, given its limitations. Also, what Dell kit currently is on the FT-supported list?
GabesVirtualWorld.com Hi Eric_sloof :-)
Eric_Sloof_-_NTPRO.NL Hi Gabrie all’s OK? :-)
Dell_KeithM PowerEdge 2850s are supported, papacheops
MSI-Chris I am curious to see if anyone has seen notable improvements in iSCSI performance?
Guest_16 Fired up the DR VM today to test out some things. So far it works, but still beating on things and since I just fired it up today...nothing really to tell
GabesVirtualWorld.com Yep. All well :-)
brennels Is the interest in vSphere for some of you to create a private cloud? Or other?
Dell_KeithM Sorry PowerEdge 1855 and PowerEdge 2650 are not
Guest_16 Hate that enterprise plus is required for host profiles. I have more work to do on other, higher-use production clusters, and host profiles would be lovely
lynxbat Wishing I had time to start a vSphere upgrade plan, but our new DC comes first and we are VI3 until testing is done
GabesVirtualWorld.com @guest_16, you can try Veeam configurator
Guest_16 I could, but really don't want yet another random VM running just to do one thing
jdonelson Ceri, we've seen some interest in FT for things like mid-range Web servers, things that you'd love to have major uptime SLAs for, but never wanted to spend the money previously
Guest_16 Bonus of virtualization: ease of operation and testing
lynxbat We don't have a Veeam rep in here. Bad timing eh?
Guest_16 Non-bonus: server sprawl and a ton of single-use systems
Dell_PuneetDhawan Ceri, yes, there are many limitations on FT at this time. I would say it is good for applications that are difficult to protect through other means, or scenarios where availability is a real concern. However, at the same time for such scenarios, it's not just the FT that will provide protection; one needs to think of availability at the whole stack
dboftlp VMFS version differences/benefits
Guest_16 FT for Web hosting is kind of funny, in my opinion
Dell-ScottH @lynxbat, yeah where's @vmdoug when you need him?
dboftlp New upcoming features?
balacs_-_Dell @msi-chris, we have not done performance comparison yet. But you probably know that the way you set up iSCSI is different in vSphere. Load balancing is much better (now that you create multiple VMkernel NICs and have round robin) load balancing
lynxbat @guest_16, I think single-use systems are an artifact of the IT department. Happens physical or virtual
Guest_16 Get a load balancer, create smaller but higher number of virtuals serving your HTTP/HTTPS data. No need for FT
Dell_PuneetDhawan At this time PowerEdge R610 and PowerEdge 710 are certified for VMware FT
DavidSzp Mark Carroll was in here from Veeam last time I was here; looks like he's not around either though
Guest_16 FT is only single VCPU at this time, so kind of limiting for many workloads
MSI-Chris I have been looking into it but haven't had a chance to test yet. I am waiting for my PowerEdge R710 to show up to get into it
GabesVirtualWorld.com About FT, is the CPU "lockstep" the only option to look at? Because there are many more CPUs that have that option but are not on the HCL for FT
erson Dell_puneetdhawan, not PowerEdge M610 and PowerEdge M710?
ceri Do we know if FT is intended to support more than one VCPU, or snapshots, in the feature? Or can we not speculate? s/feature/future/
Dell_PuneetDhawan Ceri, no, not at this time
lynxbat In the vSphere thing I was at this morning, the SE unofficially said the FT was going to see major improvements
Guest_16 I updated one of my non-production systems to vSphere last week to test out iSCSI. It is *much* nicer than VI3 for setup and performance
lynxbat We had the same thing with HA and DRs. They refine quickly
ceri Dell_puneetdhawan, OK, thanks
PapaCheops Question, host configuration controls is where you would be able to make the "template" vswitch and "publish" to all hosts? And this is only available in the Enterprise Plus Edition?
VirtualTodd There have been no statements made about future enhancements to FT with specifics
balacs_-_Dell @msi-chris, things have changed a bit. VMware has good documentation around this in their iSCSI configuration guide. So definitely look at the documents before you get started
MSI-Chris Any major gotchas that you know of?
bhenderson The improvements in FT are an NDA road map thing...contact your local VMware rep for more details
Dell_PuneetDhawan Erson, no only PowerEdge R610 and PowerEdge R710 have been certified at this time
ceri Bhenderson, will do, thanks
Guest_16 For cluster users, how many of you do four-CPU systems versus double the number of two-CPU systems? Why was that choice made? I ask because I have three clusters of PowerEdge R905s running but wondering if it is time to research and change that thought
balacs_-_Dell @msi-chris, yes. You need to create one VMkernel NIC for every physical NIC. They can be in separate vswitches. Load balancing will happen at the iSCSI S/W initiator rather than the vswitch level
brennels Is the FT available between hosts or just VMs in a single host?
balacs_-_Dell @msi-chris, also the documentation has a series of CLI commands that you can run to configure your iSCSI
Guest_16 FT is between hosts on a per-VM basis, requires three hosts in HA configuration minimum, four recommended by one of the local VMware peeps here
erson Guest_16, if you are purchasing hardware right now, you get a lot more performance in pretty much any workload if you go with two 2S system with the Nehalem-EP than a 4S system with hexacore Dunnington
brennels @guest_16, why three? Two for clustering and one for management?
MSI-Chris My current setup is two NICs for client network and two for iSCSI. Would I want to now add a VMkernel port for iSCSI to all four?
DELL_Dushyant @msi-chris, No, you would just need two
KongY-Dell As a reminder, Dell Education Services is a Global VMware Authorized Training Center (VATC) and can take you on a deep dive into the new features that vSphere brings. Dell’s What’s New with vSphere course is a two-day, hands-on live-on-line” (LOL) course that explores new features in VMware vCenter Server 4 and ESX/ESXi 4, as well as how to upgrade to VMware vSphere 4. Go to this link to learn more, and save your seat in this class: http://tinyurl.com/new-vsphere
Dell_KeithM Brennels, FT is between hosts. That is the point of it. If one host were to go down unexpectedly, the second host recovers the VM in mid instruction. Unlike HA, which just restarts the VM on the second host
erson Upcoming Nehalem-EX with eight cores (16 logical with HT) for 4S (and up) will for sure be one monster of a virtualization server with 16 DIMMs per CPU
Guest_16 Because it is HA, if the primary fails, the secondary takes over; new secondary needs to be created for lockstep to continue
Dell_PuneetDhawan Gabesvirtualword, VMware has requirements on certain CPU and chipsets that are required for FT to work. The HCL has information on if a server is supported with FT or not. For Intel, processors based on Nehalem and Penryn and for AMD Barcelona and Shangai+ will work for FT
DELL-TonyH Thanks Kongy
brennels Thanks for the clarification. Got it. Thanks, Dell_keithm, Kong, and Guest_16
GabesVirtualWorld.com @puneet, yeah I have the list on my blog. So it is not only a CPU feature but also a chipset combo
KongY-Dell Hi there, brennels :)
MSI-Chris OK, that makes sense
Dell_PuneetDhawan FT will work on even a two-node cluster; however, if one fails then your FT-protected VMs will no longer be protected
Dell_KeithM Both hosts are effectively running the same VM in FT, one in the master and the other in the slave mode
Guest_16 Back to my question for cluster users, four-CPU systems or double the number of two-CPU systems—and why if I might ask?
KongY-Dell Double-Take is in the house
HoosierCAB @guest_16, two-CPU, couldn't afford four-CPU :)
erson Dell_keithm, but active/passive, right?
bhenderson That’s right, Puneet. So three physical servers for FT is the best practice
Guest_16 (Ignoring the issue of eight or more reducing the number of VMs to 40 per host)
Dell_PuneetDhawan Gabesvirtualworld, yes, that is my understanding
brennels @kongy-dell Lol :)
Dell_KeithM Yes active/passive. If the active fails, the passive becomes the active and starts up another passive on an available machine
ceri Guest_16, eight or more what?
Guest_16 Hoosiercab, yeah, wasn't concerned with price at the moment; was looking at what others are doing and seeing if I can glean more intelligence for my feeble mind...
Guest_16 Eight or more hosts in a cluster; reduces the number of VMs per host to 40. Seven or less is 320 per host. For most people, who cares, eh?
ceri Guest_16, it does? Hell, missed that, thanks
Guest_16 For service providers...that can be an issue
brennels Clearly, FT is the most popular feature. Anyone have specifics about the security or scalability features of vSphere?
erson Guest:_16, like I said above. Buying hardware today, you get a lot more performance (and a lower price) with two 2S systems than a single 4S system (even with hexacore Dunnington and maxed out memory)
depping http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/05/25/max-amount-of-vms-per-host/
ceri Guest_16, my main concern at the moment is how much RAM I can stuff in x amount of rack space, not CPU
Guest_16 Again, was talking clusters, so assuming multiple servers already :) Good job, depping! I was just about to pull that up
ceri Thanks both
brennels Depping representing with the knowledge
HoosierCAB Guest_16, right now, I think the PowerEdge R710 two-CPU Nehalem is a clear winner. When four-CPU Nehalem is available, that will probably increase per U RAM density more
erson Guest_16, of course, but the performance increase with 2S systems still holds
VirtualTodd Scalability is increased greatly in vSphere with most of the limits from ESX 3.5 being raised; Depping’s post is a good source for this
Guest_16 Ack! back, sorry about that
balacs_-_Dell @papacheops, I got the answer to your question. Host profiles and distributed virtual switches are available in Enterprise Plus
brennels I need to link to yellow-bricks for 411 more often
VirtualTodd We have also started posting the performance results we have been working on for the last few months with vSphere on the Vroom! Blog—link coming
erson Hoosiercab, for sure, you can equip Nehalem-EX with 16 DIMMs per CPU, going with 8 GB modules you have 128 GB RAM per CPU
VirtualTodd http://blogs.vmware.com/performance/
erson Dell, are there any plans for an 8S system from Dell with Nehalem-EX?
KongY-Dell @depping, a bastion of knowledge that he readily shares at www.yellow-bricks.com
erson /me shoots in the dark
HoosierCAB Erson, I can only dream. Getting 36 GB in a PowerEdge R710 killed my annual budget
erson Hoosiercab, but DDR3 memory is almost as cheap as DDR2?
brennels @virtualtodd, thanks Todd. Are you the one doing the Double-Take benchmarking too?
VirtualTodd I'm not benchmarking Double-Take (at least that I know of)
depping Anyone know when we can expect the EqualLogic Path Selection plug-in to be released?
Theron_Conrey /me has to get back to work, thanks @dellservergeek
VirtualTodd My Exchange testing with vSphere hasn't been posted yet. Should be out in a couple of weeks
DELL-d_glynn @depping, beta should be out soon
depping Will it be freely available? And do you have performance improvement numbers/details?
Dell_KeithM Erson, with 4S you get 32 physical cores. Isn’t that enough for you?
DELL-d_glynn I don't have a performance number
VirtualTodd I haven't heard of the EqualLogic Path Selection plug-in before; but it does sound cool
DELL-d_glynn And it will cost the same as our previously released add-on software
Dell_PuneetDhawan Depping, we are still working on the plug-in, since it is in development and a future functionality we don't have answers to your specific questions at this time
depping OK that makes sense
Guest_16 Tis quiet, different question: those that upgraded a 3.5 system to 4.0, did you almost have a heart attack while Host Update did its thing and the system was doing its thing? Did you run to the DC and hook up KVM to see what was going on only to see it on a single line “installing” for a long time? First time in a long time I wondered if things weren't working well...I had a good laugh about it afterward
Dell_KeithM I have a question also, for those that have upgraded, do you see an improvement in licensing ease of use in 4.0, or is it pretty much the same?
Guest_16 Licensing is a ton easier if you ask me
erson Dell_keithm, for me, need it is for sure enough, but maybe not for others since IBM, HP and others are developing 4S+ systems for Nehalem-EX
MSI-Chris So does anyone have a recommendation as far as an in-place upgrade versus a clean install of ESX?
bhenderson I know I am happy to see FLEXlm go away ::smile
depping Clean install, always; it's just as fast, maybe faster, and definitely cleaner
HoosierCAB Msi-chris, if you have external storage, a clean, scripted install is better
jdonelson Internally, I've been impressed with our improvements to Update Manager. For three of the labs I support, I've used update manager, and it's worked flawlessly
KongY-Dell @erson, from what I've seen, memory still tends to be the bottleneck with storage pipes/spindles being a close second
Dell_KeithM It was intended to be much cleaner licensing, so I am glad to hear it is working that way in practice
HoosierCAB Speaking of scripted, anyone dump out a nice complete install script for ESX 4 yet?
MSI-Chris I am planning to do clean installs, but I just wanted to make sure I am not making it harder for myself
depping Working on one, Hoosiercab. Expect one online soon
erson Dell-d_glynn, where can I find more information about add-ons/plug-ins for EqualLogic?
DELL-d_glynn @erson, I don't know what is out in public yet, but the VMware forums do mention one being in the works
plauterbach I am a big fan of using the PowerShell VI Toolkit. Is there a new version for vSphere?
depping Most vendors are working on them, by the way :-) Yes, there's a new version of the VI toolkit; it's called PowerCLI as of now
DELL-d_glynn Quite like duncan :) likely
erson Dell-d_glynn, so the comment about "previously released add -on software" was about software from VMware?
depping http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/2009/05/powercli-is-official-whats-new.html
brennels vSphere and EqualLogic, just like Campbell’s, “Mmm, Mmm Good :) I Like it
KongY-Dell Just curious if anyone is running into VMs flagging high memory alarm issues in vCenter when their actual utilization is not high from the VM perspective?
depping Yes :) It's a known issue Kongy
KongY-Dell I've seen your posts depping, thanks for clarifying the issue
depping Check this topic for more details on the VMTN Forum: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/211585?tstart=0
depping Keep in mind that it's not only with vSphere...also with 3.5 and AMD
VirtualTodd There was an earlier plug-in for EqualLogic and VMware: Auto-Snapshot Manager The TechCenter is having a chat in a couple of weeks that will focus on vSphere performance; are there any specific areas that you would like discussed?
ceri I'd be interested in the impact of thin provisioning on I/O performance in real life
Guest_16 Kongy-dell, I have a 2003 64-bit VM that is flagging alarms for memory
depping I heard a blog article is coming up on that one, or a document...same issue as the link about G16
KongY-Dell @guest_16, have you checked http://communities.vmware.com/thread/211585?tstart=0
Guest_16 Reading right this minute
VirtualTodd I will see if I can get someone that has done the testing on thin provisioning to either come to the chat or get me up to speed on their latest results
KongY-Dell It is a known issue; there is a "workaround," but I would not recommend the workaround, which is to disable large pages
ceri Virtualtodd, much appreciated
jdonelson Virtualtodd, I'd like to hear/see performance numbers for the new iSCSI stack in vSphere; the effects of round-robin scheduling, multi-initiators, etc.
depping Virtualtodd, Scott Drummonds told me the performance team was working on it
plauterbach I second the thin provisioning VMDK performance details
KongY-Dell There is a reason for the default being large pages enabled. I would wait for the VMware fix. Before this chat comes to an end, thank you, everyone, for attending and participating. A big thanks to the distinguished guests and virtualization community members who jumped into this chat.
VirtualTodd Thanks for organizing the chat Kongy - good topic
DELL_Dushyant Thanks Kong
Dell-ScottH Kong, thanks for leading and organizing the chat today
ceri Yes, thanks
Guest_16 How do we know if we are distinguished guests? :)
brennels Yes, thanks Kongy...Virtualtodd, good to hear from you again. Take care
balacs_-_Dell @kongy, thanks for organizing!
Dell-ScottH Tons of good stuff in here; be sure to read the transcript tomorrow, and you can click links to your hearts content then
bhenderson Thanks Kongy
KongY-Dell @guest_16, a more specific name would help :)
ceri Where will the transcript be? Stupid question...
KongY-Dell But 16 is a cool number
depping Yeah, thanks Kong, and sorry about the football match
jdonelson Thanks, Kong
HoosierCAB Ceri, same link as the chat
Guest_16 I chose the name I was given during a VMware chat :)
ceri Hoosiercab, thanks
KongY-Dell @depping, he he...please don't bring that up ;)
Guest_16 Next time I'll use a name that might be recognized by one or two
brennels Let me know when it is ready, and I'll update and link to the http://usergroup.doubletake.com
VirtualTodd Quick plug for my twitter - www.twitter.com/virtualtodd
depping So what is your name G16? I'm depping on twitter...what a surprise
erson Dell-scotth, Kongy-dell, what URL should I monitor to get the first information about new hardware from Dell? It would be nice if the Dell TechCenter had a news section with all the latest server/storage hardware news from Dell
depping :-)
Guest_16 Ancient Chinese secret today, but I'll try dropping by later; you can find me on Twitter as well, whining and bitching about the missing Mac vSphere client
bhenderson Lol
KongY-Dell @erson, great suggestion
ceri Guest_16, you might work in my office!
DELL-TonyH One final plug for the vSphere workshop: www.tinyurl.com/new-vsphere
depping And I do some VMware/virtualization blogging once in a while: yellow-bricks.com
Guest_16 I read your blog and a few others. Mr. Boche isn't here today. I read his, but we have differing opinions
bhenderson I read it too, depping
depping I have different opinions as well than Jason, but that's a good thing—makes discussing more fun
HoosierCAB Erson, you mean your sales folks don't constantly want to talk to you about new hardware? I thought every Dell salesperson was always trying to sell more hardware!
Guest_16 Grrr, clicked a link and got booted again. OK, I'll keep an eye out for the next fun session with Dell and VMware. Take care and thank you very much
bhenderson Adios everyone
KongY-Dell @erson, Bruce Eric at Dell has an Inside IT blog that announces new hardware from Dell: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/insideit/default.aspx
KongY-Dell Take care everyone. Thanks again for dropping by
depping No problem
KongY-Dell @depping, next year...Manu CL champs ;) Even if we have to replace Cr7 with Franck Ribery
DELL-d_glynn Lol
ceri Night all
depping :)
erson Kongy-dell, thanks. Will check out that URL
KongY-Dell @erson, Bruce Eric is on top of things, and his blog is on point for Dell hardware releases :)
erson Great! Was stumped when I found the PowerEdge T410 and PowerEdge R410 today and realized that I needed some place to monitor for releases
KongY-Dell @erson, http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/insideit/archive/2009/05/27/dell-introduces-two-more-poweredge-servers.aspx
depping Gotta go...thanks guys
KongY-Dell @depping, thank you duncan
erson Dell TechCenter should get all the new hardware in advance and put up a nice tour to go through them
bruceericatdell Hey guys, let me know if you need anything from me. I'm behind www.digitalnomads.com and blog on enterprise issues on Inside Enterprise IT
erson I assume you guys would enjoy it a lot more than Lisa Onstot: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2009/05/27/dell-introduces-two-new-11th-generation-poweredge-servers-to-simplify-computing.aspx. And tell the design department that we need a front plate for the PowerVault MD3000i to match the new look. It totally destroys the look of my new equipment. :)
bruceericatdell Later guys. Working on a post on Google's use of our PowerEdge R710 for their search appliance. More work to do :)
erson One thing that came up in the beginning of the chat was whether PowerEdge 2650 supported vSphere because of the 64-bit requirement. Someone from Dell answered “no” to that question, but wasn't there a PowerEdge 2650 version with Paxville DP CPUs, which do support 64 bit?
DELL-d_glynn But how old would that server be?
erson Seriously old :) But the guy who asked seemed to have a couple of PowerEdge 2650s that he was hoping to use, and if he has Paxville DP CPUs in them he could probably use them since then they would support 64 bit
DELL-d_glynn It is possible he'd prefer to run supported, aka HCL’d, hardware, but if the PowerEdge 2650s are all he has got to work with…
erson If I remember correctly, he used them to test upgrades or something like that. His current setup was PowerEdge 1855
DELL-d_glynn Ah, in that case supported is probably not something he'd be concerned with
erson It just came to me since I realized that I ran into the same thing about a year ago trying to find out if the PowerEdge 2650 we have supported 64 bit and found information that it could be purchased with Paxville DP that supported 64 bit. It was probably Intel’s worst Xeon ever. But anyway... :)
DELL-d_glynn It has been a pleasure, Erson. Feel free to drop me an e-mail d_glynn@ if you want to follow up. See y'all next week
erson I'll be here as usual. Wonder what next topic will be though. D_glynn, what was your title again?
DELL-d_glynn Title?
erson At Dell. What do you work with?
DELL-d_glynn I work in New Hampshire ;)
erson Putting you in my peeps at Dell contact folder so would be good to know what you work with at Dell
DELL-d_glynn The EqualLogic gear. We can follow up offline. I need to make a beeline for the door
erson OK, bye