The linked .PDF file is an automatically generated report from my test installation of the new vCenter Chargeback product.

I have set a cost per unit of £1 for all items (GHz, GB disk, network etc.) at this rate I can make £1.7k per day from renting out my virtual server platform at home

See an example report from my lab here

Anyone interested in renting a virtual machine at that rate please drop me a line

I am setting a trial of the new vCenter Chargeback product on my lab environment, and have followed the instructions to configure the SQL database (new DB and new account with database owner permissions) however when I try to configure the Windows application I get errors from the jdbc component as follows;

“The user is not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection”

If I try with the appliance version of the application it ignores the slash in the DOMAIN\USER syntax for the database permissions and puts in DOMAINUSER, which obviously doesn’t work.

for now I have configured it using SQL authentication and that works ok isn’t ideal from a management point of view, would be good to understand why this is, as the appliance issue looks like a bug to me.

I have been gradually rebuilding my home lab and adding a new HP ML115 G5 server (which is capable of running the new FT feature) as I plan to build an ESX inside ESX cluster to run an FT implementation on a single box (info on how to do that here).

Once I had installed my virtual ESXi hosts I ran into a problem trying to add them into vCenter as hosts,  I kept getting an error modl.fault.MethodNotFound and an error about SSL certificates.

I tried several reinstalls, re-creating the VM and even a clean install of vCenter to no avail, following some twitter suggestions I downloaded a newer build of ESXi (build 171294) – and it worked 1st time. the build I was using was the one I downloaded on GA day (build 140815), so moral of the story is that it’s always worth checking the website for updated builds.

When you do this, it’s also worth updating to the latest vSphere client, I found some oddities in the UI that resulted in a red cross while trying to enable a VMKernel port to act as the FT logging interface.

I also have some problems enabling the VUM plug-in on that machine so hopefully a client upgrade fixes that.

It looks like all of the products (ESX-classic, ESXi, vCentre) have significantly updated builds released since GA.

Screenshot showing 3 x physical hosts and 2 x virtual ESXi hosts in a cluster – all managed by a single vCenter instance

With ESX 3.5 and Virtual Centre 2.5 you needed to copy a bunch of sysprep files to use the excellent template deployment functionality (step by step account here)

Now that vSphere supports all the newer versions I had to update my Windows 2008 templates

There has been some confusion over how you deploy Windows 2008/Vista from a template in vSphere Virtual Center 4.0 and have it sysprep’d ready for use. The good news is – you don’t need to do anything special; you don’t need to put sysprep in a particular directory on the VC box as in Windows 2008 & Vista as there is no longer a separate sysprep download, it’s built into the default Windows OS installation

Just use the customization specification manager and it can even set the IP address of your new virtual machine as part of the template deployment.

Under the hood it injects a sysprep unattended/answer file into the OS as it boots and does all the customisations for you based on the specification you created/imported from vCenter 2.5

So all you need to do is get your master VM built with the OS, patched,  VMtools installed and you can shut it down, convert to template and then just use the deploy from template wizard going forward.

Cloudcamp London is just winding down, it seems to be a lot smaller than the last London Cloudcamp and it’s in a smaller but much nicer venue (provided by Microsoft)

There were a set of lightning talks on various cloud topics, mostly on security in the cloud.

Some interesting thoughts from HP labs on on data obfuscation software as a way to better protect data in the cloud, some client side software that can encrypt and decrypt data from a service provider, almost it’s own man in the middle to translate data to/from the cloud.

Never store your data in the clear in the cloud but don’t rely on the cloud to do the encryption, it’s transparent to your apps and is prob he most agnostic approach too, an Amazon or Microsoft DB doesn’t care if the First Name field says “bob” or “"LpZ”

There was an interesting panel discussion that spent some time on the definition of cloud computing, there was a lot of bagging of the concept of private clouds not being “proper” cloud computing, it’s “just” virtualization.

That’s a favorite argument of mine and Joe Bagley from Quest software made a point that summarizes it better than my previous statements; “virtualization is just a technology, cloud is a business model” – to expand that further that business model can be applied equally to public facing services and internally facing services (inter-departmental, chargeback etc.) – it’s not all about internet scale gargantuan operations

Some breakout sessions from Cisco on IP NGN – Next Generation Network, applying tagging technology to ensure network state moves around the datacentre and globe with virtual server instances. “the network is not just the pipe”.

Rightscale were up next; SaaS gives you limited control over what you can do with your solution – PaaS/IaaS – total flexibility, rightscale add automation and management

Predictions over infrastructure sizing cost money = over-provisioning; opportunity cost, which is why cloud is so appealing to start-ups, lower barrier of entry… same principal can apply to the corporate world – cost of failure is smaller for off the wall ideas.

some examples of very peaky demand that they helped deal with on EC2;

• Animoto EC2 example 8 mins CPU for 1 min video, 25k sign ups per hour peak 4.7k EC2 instances
• Oscars Starcut, scheduling feature to bring up instances on a schedule
• Beijing olympics
• Eli Lilly — computational biology, grid in the cloud taking advantage of massive parallelism

CohesiveFT were up next (The discussion topics didn’t grab my interest this time round so I stuck with the vendor track as I needed to get a bit of market research in.

• Elasticserver.com – customize virtual (cloud) server build = likened to Dell website process for building a physical server
• Software factory, pick components – open source things like mySql, python etc.  upload your own components, multiple OSes (open source)
• build, licence, market sell ISV solutions via portals
• output as EC2 or elastic hosts cloud
• or download VM in VMware/Xen/Parallels VM appliance – very cool
• community edition = free, personal or professional (paid-for
• they embed management hooks in the appliance back to elastic server service console
• On-premise versions going into beta soon, deploy as a VM appliance – nice

enStratus were up last David Bagley is an IaaS management offering

• managing infrastructure, security, reliability
• Interesting point made by a member of the audience; Amazon (+other IaaS)costs flex up and down with demand, managed services don’t map that way with most MSP, support is a fixed cost, no pay as you go
• Reason being you need people sitting there, a larger MSP should be able to do this as they have more diversity better risk/workload spread but costs don’t reflect that or have high barriers to entry.

All round a good event, bit smaller and less vocal audience than the last one I attended, if you get the chance I would definitely recommend checking out an event near you.

VMware have an interesting proof of concept document posted online here, this is great progress for the platform and it can only be helped out by the close partnership with Cisco that has resulted in the NX1000V switch.

I’m no networking expert but to my understanding there are issues with extending Layer 2 networks across multiple physical locations that need to be resolved for this to be a safe configuration. to my limited understanding traditional technologies like spanning tree can present some challenges for inter-DC flat VLANs so they need to be designed carefully, maybe using MPLS as a more suitable inter-DC protocol.

The interesting part for me is that this will be the nirvana for VMware’s vCloud programme, where services can be migrated on/off-premise to/from 3rd party providers as required and without downtime. this is do-able now with some downtime via some careful planning and some tools but this proposition extends the vMotion zero downtime migration to vCloud.

As this technology and relevant VM/storage best-practice filters out of VMware and into service providers and customers this could become a supportable service offering for vCloud Service Providers.

To achieve this you still need storage access from both sites, to me the next logical step is to combine vMotion and FT technologies with some kind of host based replication or storage virtualization like the Datacore products. this will remove the dependency (and thus potential SPOF) on a single storage device for vMotion/FT.

Virtualizing/replicating the actual VM storage between different arrays and storage types (EMC—>HP, or even DAS—>EMC) and allowing (encapsulating) it over standard IP links rather than relying on complicated and proprietary array based replication and dedicated fibre connectivity is going to be a key success factor for vCloud, it’s interesting to see all the recent work on formalising FCoE along with other WAN-capable standards like iSCSI.

Some further reading on how I see “the cloud” evolving at a more practical level here

http://vinf.net/2009/01/08/what-is-the-cloud/

http://vinf.net/2008/06/23/virtualization-the-key-to-delivering-cloud-based-architecture-now/

A slight diversion from the usual topics, over the last year I have been getting back into cycling after a long break. Mainly to regain my overall fitness but also as a social thing with our daughter who loves cycling.

Whilst I enjoy cycling, like any geek I need an extra hook to keep me interested and track my progress against my goals, following some advice from colleagues who are really into running I looked into the Suunto range of products.

My list of wants for this personal training “solution” included

• Mileage & altitude logging (being as I typically cycle where there are a lot of hills)
• EPOC, energy consumption, heart rate
• Temperature
• GPS route logging so I can view routes on Google Maps etc.

I ended up at the Suunto T6C wrist top computer which comes with the heart rate belt, data cable etc.

Suunto have an active user forum with people sharing both technical and training tips, it wasn’t cheap but is widely regarded as “the business” and I increased the RoI as I needed a normal watch – it’s not the smallest of watches, but it’s workable for me.

The Suunto range works using wireless “pods” which are battery operated sensors that record data including speed, heart rate, cadence etc. which are logged on the watch memory, the watch itself has built in sensors and logging for environmental items like temperature & altitude.

It doesn’t however satisfy the GPS route logging want; there is a GPS pod for the Suunto range however when paired with the T6C it just functions to monitor speed rather than allowing data logging and anyway Suunto bike pod provides a better solution for cycling.

Suunto also have the X9i

and the newer X10 model

Both of these can do data logging but they were out of my price range at the time and didn’t get very good reviews for performance and build quality, whereas the T6C got good feedback all round.

I started with the watch itself which comes with the heart rate belt, later on I added the road bike pod (Suunto Road bike POD) and a cadence pod (Suunto Cadence Pod – For Cycling)

I did also buy the GPS pod (Suunto GPS POD) which is how I discovered it’s lack of the route logging features I required – it’s now in reserve for a future foray into running.

The watch comes with a USB cable to download the logged data to a PC using the Suunto provided software (Suunto Training Manager); this is freely downloadable and allows you to analyze the data; there is also a wireless USB receiver (Suunto PC POD) if you don’t want to use the cable or have a more complicated real-time coaching requirement for multiple people (i.e professional coach)

The following screenshots are from the Suunto Training Manager application.

There is also some commercial software called FirstBeat Athlete which comes well recommended and takes a more active coaching approach whereas the Suunto Training Manager is more about allowing you to analyze your performance retrospectively although have not tried it yet (2-week evaluation copy here)

This is the road bike pod

It records speed, and thus distance travelled – my hybrid bike has quick change wheels so it replaces the standard front wheel skewer and works with a magnet on the spokes; Suunto also do another version of this sensor for bikes without quick change wheels (Suunto Bike POD) just be sure to check the fork size is compatible as the non road bike mounts to the front fork.

I chose the road bike pod as it was a neater solution and there was less chance of the sensor being knocked off whilst the bike is being transported around.

This the the cadence sensor (don’t confuse it with the standard Suunto bike pod; both are of a similar design but do fundamentally different things)

It works by attaching a small magnet to the inside of the pedal crank and a sensor mounted on the frame with supplied cable ties, cadence is an important part of monitoring your training – particularly when cycling as it’s easy to coast down hills

I have found the heart rate belt fine to use, some people have trouble with it slipping off but I’ve not had any issues, they can break/wear out but there are spares available.

All of the sensor pods have flat type batteries which are user-replaceable.

Some further resources are here

Suunto manual download page

Suunto training guides

The last part of my list of “wants” was GPS route tracking so I can record my cycle routes and store them for reference or working out where I got lost, I wasn’t bothered about actual on-bike navigation just post-ride analysis.

Being as the Suunto offerings I went with don’t have GPS route logging capabilities I looked at several standalone route logging devices like this and this, but they all require data to be downloaded and converted into a mapping programme.

Being as I always carry my mobile phone (Blackberry Pearl 8120) when I cycle I wanted an integrated solution. The version of the Blackberry Pearl that I use can run Google Maps with cell location but it lacks a built-in GPS. as a result I looked for a Bluetooth GPS receiver and some software to run on the Blackberry to log and possibly automatically upload data.

After a lot of experimentation I found Instamapper (www.instamapper.com, blog) which is an online service that integrates with Google Maps and works by receiving GPS data from client software running on a variety of handsets.

The clever part is that you never need to download/upload data to the service, the client buffers and uploads data automatically whilst the application is running, I found some problems with this initially that when the handset locked the application was terminating – this forum post fixed it for me and it has worked 100% ever since.

You can analyse the data online via the instamapper website, but it also gives you the option to export the data out to a variety of formats, including a .KMZ file which works with Google Maps 

You can then view tracks like this in Google Earth

My bike is an Iron Horse Transit 3.0 which is a hybrid bike, I spent a lot of time researching which bike to buy and was looking for a Marin or Specialized bike but to be honest I was offered a good deal on this at an Evans Cycles warehouse sale last year and it was too good a deal to turn down.

It’s a great bike and I have clocked up nearly 1,000 miles in the last year it can cope well enough with a mix of road and gravel/forest trail type conditions – it’s not an off-road bike by any means as it has pretty slim tyres but its pretty versatile and light and well suited to the type of riding I do (mainly road with occasional trail/park) the riding position is excellent for heavy traffic as it’s quite upright and the flat handlebars make manoeuvring in traffic easy.

We have a 3-year old who likes to come along on rides, for this I have one of these seats.

It mounts to the bracket shown below which I just leave on my bike all the time. The seat is quick and easy to get on and off the bracket and is secure when on, the metal mounts offer a reasonable level of suspension for our child when sitting in the seat and stops the worst of shocks from the road.

I did look at some of the Weeride type seats but didn’t like the proximity of the childs head to my chin/teeth especially over bumps! although I can see they would be better for weight distribution and balance.

As an added bonus if you need to do any shopping the child seat can hold the shopping whilst you ride home (assuming you don’t take the child with you of course ).

I hope that was useful to someone, my inspiration for looking into this originally came from the following links

http://www.ultrarob.com/blog/2007/11/bike-ride-mapping-with-gps.php

http://www.nickfessel.com/gmaps/burlingtonbikeRide.html

http://www.semifluid.com/?p=80

http://www.mapmyride.com/

http://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb-trails/topo-maps-in-google-earth-map-your-bike-trails/

In the lab I am currently working with I have a set of vSphere 4 ESXi installations running as a virtual machine and configured in an HA cluster – this is a great setup for testing VM patches, and general ops procedures or learning about VMware HA/DRS/FT etc. (this lab is running on a pair of ML115 g5 servers but would work equally on just one

Everything installed ok and I can ping the virtual ESX servers from the vCenter host that manages the cluster (the warning triangle is that there is no management network redundancy – I can live with that in this lab.

All ESX hosts (physical and virtual) are connected via iSCSI to a machine running OpenFiler and the storage networking works ok, however when I configure the vMotion & FT private networks between the VM ESX hosts I cannot ping the vMotion/FT IP addresses using vmkping – indicating that there were some communication problems, normally this would be a VLAN issue or some routing but in this instance all the NICs and IP addresses for my lab reside on a flat 10.0.0.0/8 network (it’s not production, just a lab).

After some digging I came across this post for running ESX full as a VM, and noted the section on setting the vSwitch to promiscuous mode so I tried that with the vSwitch on the physical ESX host that the two ESXi VMs were running on;

And now the two Virtual ESXi nodes can communicate via vmkping

Problem solved and I can now vMotion nested VMs between each virtual ESX host – very clever!

As in my previous post; I am working on a lab with virtual ESX4 servers in it – I can vMotion VMs from a physical vSphere cluster into the virtual vSphere cluster perfectly and performance is very good (just 1 dropped ping in my testing)

One of the physical hosts belongs to www.techhead.co.uk which he has kindly lent for this joint experiment – see his posts here, here and here on running vSphere on these HP ML115g5 servers and their FT compatibility. We have some joint postings in the pipeline on guest performance with complicated apps like SQL & Exchange when protected via FT , so keep your eyes peeled.

As the physical ESX hosts themselves are FT compatible I thought I’d see if I can enable FT for a VM running inside a virtual ESX server cluster, so a VM running inside a hypervisor, inside another hypervisor..!

Our of the box, unfortunately not; as it gives the following error message

To work around this you can enable the following advanced (and likely totally unsupported) settings to enable FT on the nested VM (the default is/was false) (thanks to the comment on this post for the replay.allowBTOnly = TRUE setting!)

And here it is – Nested VM running, with FT enabled

Very nice

Later on you can see some warnings about hosts getting a bit behind, also I had some initial problems getting FT to bring up the 2nd VM properly, the UI said it was restarting and it got stuck there, I dropped the virtual ESXi host down to a single vCPU rather than two and it worked ok from then on. I decided to do this as the virtual ESXi nodes were coming up reporting 2 x Quad core CPUs; whilst the physical host only has a 1 x Quad Core CPU so I guess that was causing some confusion.

At this point both of my virtual ESXi hosts were on the same physical vSphere server, and I seemed to have problems with the secondary getting behind. (vLockstep interval)

In this instance my nested VM is running an x86 Windows 2003 unattended setup.

I vMotioned one of the virtual ESXi hosts to the second physical vSphere server (very cool in itself) and it seemed to be better for a while, I assume there was some CPU contention from the nested VM.

However in the end it flagged up similar errors, I assume this is due to the overhead of running a VM inside a hypervisor, inside another hypervisor this is a lab setup but will prove very useful if you have to learn about this stuff or experiment with different configurations.

This is probably totally unsupported, use at your own risk – but it does work well enough to play about with in the lab.

I have had Vista RTM installed on my current laptop since it was released, I’m always running out of disk space – I just have an .iso and VM hording habit!

However I recently upgraded my laptop from a 100Gb disk to a 200Gb one, thinking that should be more than enough (famous last words..)

But not 3 months later I’m out of space again, but this time I’ve even purged all the VMs I no longer use and I am still looking at an OS/app footprint of tens of Gb, so I did some digging and aggressive housekeeping and turned up a lot of downloaded and old application data that has built up over the last couple of years.

I used TreeSize Free which is great for sniffing around all those obscure and redirected Windows folders (screenshot below is after some general housekeeping, but still!)

My data not unexpected and I can live with this

with a bit of digging I found the worst culprit(s) that I didn’t know about, AppData so I did a bit of exploring…

The size of the AppData\Windows folder was a bit of a surprise, as was the size of the temp internet files folder as I exclusively use Firefox, however this is temp files where IE is embedded into MS apps like Outlook and Office and this is where it stores its temp files.

The 95Mb Explorer directory was mainly thumbnail cache databases

It seems  lots of apps use this directory to store their data (as the name would suggest but don’t clean up after you’ve uninstalled them – Xobni, I’m pointing the finger at you, Spotify and Google Earth also seem to keep data here, assume that’s a cache of downloaded content.

Apple seem to leave old iPod updates in here too

Next up, C:\ProgramData

Microsoft Search cache seems pretty big, but it’s useful

Apple everything… thanks for eating up all my disk space, I’m sure I need to keep iTunes 7.x ready to install!

and finally C:\Windows

700Mb of temp files! and when I looked into it there were over 12,000 files

So, in summary – TreeSize Free is an excellent tool for going exploring and visualising your actual folder by folder disk usage, you can also delete folder from within it.

by doing this I regained a serious amount of useful disk space!