Free rack time

If you’re not on twitter, get on it now and add ipexpert!

“Stay focused on your “tweets” this month… we will be giving out 2,000 HOURS worth of Proctor Labs rack time… only to Twitter followers!”

Virtual Center Cluster using MSCS

The constant question with Vmware is, “Can I cluster using Microsoft Clustering Services?”

The answer now, thankfully, is yes you can. And just to stretch it out a bit more there’s this!

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Change service console IP in Vmware ESX 3.5

There are a number of different options for changing the IP address of the service console in Vmware ESX 3.5. Following is another example using the CLI and the esxnet command.
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ESX Server, IP Storage and Jumbo Frames

Scott Lowe has written an interesting post about enabling jumbo frames for VMware’s software iSCSI initiator. VMware does not support this (yet) but it appears you can already enable it. For full details, check his blogpost.

A jumbo frame’s size is typically set at 9000 versus the standard size of around 1500. Setting the frame size (or mtu) to 9000 actually lowers the amount of packet processing (assembly/disassembly) by a factor of six. The overhead for ethernet packets also decreased because you send less frames. In general, you should see a performance increase of around 20 to 30%. Note that you have to enable jumbo frames on all levels of your infrastructure: the ethernet switch, the server and the storage box (e.g. NetApp, EqualLogic, …).

Vmware Workstation 6 Microsoft Clustering

Another request via email:

I am trying to create a windows 2000 server cluster in vmware workstation 6.0 and I am having some issues with the scsi disks (not working).

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VSS vs VCB

The problem: Getting consistent backups of Windows, SQL, Exchange and Oracle while hot backing up VM’s at the VMDK level
In the physical world you have backups that use Volume Shadow copy to backup files and databases. All the tape backup vendors use this when working with SQL, Exchange and now the latest version of Oracle support VSS also. This allows for consistent backup of SQL, Exchange and Oracle.

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NetBackup 6.5.1 and Vmware Consolidated Backup (VCB) 1.1 How-to

Another interesting problem found via the internet!

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Storage Vmotion GUI

Alexander Gaiswinker created a storage vmotion graphical user interface and posted it in the VMware community.

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Vmware for sale!

According to virtualization.info, EMC is looking to offload Vmware to, of all companies, Intel!

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Dynagen 0.11.0 out now

It turns out I am a little slow on the uptake! Dynagen 0.11.0 is now available.

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