Virtualization, Cloud, Infrastructure and all that stuff in-between
My ramblings on the stuff that holds it all together
Category Archives: ESX
With the move to ESXi is NFS becoming more useful than VMFS?
Posted by on March 2, 2010
Now that VMware are moving away from ESX classic (with service console) to the ESXi model I have experienced a couple of issues recently that got me wondering if NFS will be a more appropriate model for VM storage going forward. in recent versions of ESX (3.5 and 4) NFS has moved away from [...]
8 Node ESXi Cluster running 60 Virtual Machines – all Running from a Single 500GBP Physical Server
Posted by on February 25, 2010
I am currently presenting a follow-up to my previous vTARDIS session for the London VMware Users Group where I demonstrated a 2-node ESX cluster on cheap PC-grade hardware (ML-115g5). The goal of this build is to create a system you can use for VCP and VCDX type study without spending thousands on normal production [...]
Installing ESXi on a Laptop
Posted by on February 24, 2010
Following on from my recent blog posts about the various ways to configure ML115 G5 servers to run ESX, I thought I would do some further experimenting on some older hardware that I have. I have a Dell D620 laptop with dual-core CPU and 4Gb of RAM which is now no longer my day-day [...]
VMware ESX 5
Posted by on August 7, 2009
Ok, so vSphere (ESX4) has only just been released, but what would you like to see in the next major version? Hyper V R2 will be out soon, and I would expect it’s successor within a further 18 months. whilst vSphere is a technically better product now Microsoft are going to be throwing a [...]
vSphere ESXi as a VM – VMKernel Traffic Not Working
Posted by on June 12, 2009
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 [...]
vSphere RC RAM Under VMware Workstation: How Low Can You Go?
Posted by on May 8, 2009
Getting ESX (in it’s various versions) to run under VMware Workstation has proven to be a very popular article on this blog, if you are a consultant who has to do product demos of VI3/vSphere or are studying for your VCP it’s a very useful thing to be able to do on your own [...]
New Home Lab Design
Posted by on April 2, 2009
I have had a lab/test setup at home for over 15 years now, it’s proven invaluable to keep my skills up to date and help me with study towards the various certifications I’ve had to pass for work, plus I’m a geek at heart and I love this stuff over the years it’s grown [...]
Cannot Set Static IP in OpenFiler When Running as a VM
Posted by on February 4, 2009
As a result of a power outage last week my home lab needed a reboot as my 2 x ESX D530 boxes didn’t have auto-power on setting set in BIOS, so I dutifully braved the snow to get to the garage and power them on manually. However nothing came back online.. ESX started but [...]
Microsoft now Officially support many of their products under ESX 3.5u2
Posted by on September 5, 2008
As noted here and here, VMWare have had ESX 3.5u2 certified under Microsoft’s SVVP programme, this is excellent news and will knock down one of the long standing barriers to greater adoption of virtualisation as I wrote about here – support. Most notably for me this means blessed support of Exchange 2007sp1 running under [...]
PSOD – Purple Screen of Death
Posted by on July 8, 2008
Just incase you ever wondered what it looks like here is a screendump.. this is the VMWare equivalent of Microsoft’s BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) I got this whilst running ESX 3.5 under VMWare Workstation 6.5 build 99530, it happened because I was trying to boot my ESX installation from a SCSI hard disk – [...]
