In my last post Configuring Multipathing for Software iSCSI Using Port Binding we saw how to configure port binding and achieve multipathing for software iSCSI using GUI. In this post we will learn how to achieve the same using CLI.

I have posted an article Managing vSphere Network From Command Line sometime back and we will be using some commands to configure the network first. So lets begin.

1: Verify number of uplinks available on Esxi host

# esxcli network nic list

2: List all Standard vSwitch along with associated uplink

# esxcli network vswitch standard list

So we have 3 uplinks on Esxi host here: vmnic0,vmnic1 and vmnic2. Out of this vmnic0 is connected to vSwitch0 and providing the management network. We will create a new vswitch and use vmnic1 and vmnic2 as uplink to that vswitch.

3: Create a standard vSwitch by name iscsi-vSwitch

#  esxcli network vswitch standard add -v iscsi-vSwitch -P 256

4: Add vmnic1 and vmnic2 as uplink to “iscsi-vSwitch”

# esxcli network vswitch standard uplink add -u=vmnic1 -v=iscsi-vSwitch

# esxcli network vswitch standard uplink add -u=vmnic2 -v=iscsi-vSwitch

5: Make the uplinks as active

#  esxcli network vswitch standard policy failover set -a vmnic1,vmnic2 -v iscsi-vSwitch

6: Add 2 portgroups (iscsi-PG1 and iscsi-PG2) to iscsi-vSwitch

# esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup add -p=iscsi-PG1 -v=iscsi-vSwitch

# esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup add -p=iscsi-PG2 -v=iscsi-vSwitch

7: Associate the uplinks with the correct portgroups

# esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup policy failover set -a vmnic1 -p iscsi-PG1

# esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup policy failover set -a vmnic2 -p iscsi-PG2

8: Create the VMkernel interfaces and associate them with the portgroups iscsi-PG1 and iscsi-PG2

# esxcli network ip interface add -p iscsi-PG1 -i vmk1

# esxcli network ip interface add -p iscsi-PG2 -i vmk2

# esxcli network ip interface ipv4 set -i vmk1 -I 192.168.0.161 -N 255.255.255.0 -t static

# esxcli network ip interface ipv4 set -i vmk2 -I 192.168.0.162 -N 255.255.255.0 -t static

9: Enable and Configure the iSCSI Software Adapter

# esxcli iscsi software set -e true

10: Configure IP addresses of the iSCSI targets

# esxcli iscsi adapter discovery sendtarget add -a 192.168.0.90:3260 -A vmhba33

Configure Port Binding

11: Bind the VMkernel network adapter to the iSCSI adapter

# esxcli iscsi networkportal add –nic vmk1 –adapter vmhba33

# esxcli iscsi networkportal add –nic vmk2 –adapter vmhba33

Note: Binding details can be verified by using the following command:

# esxcli iscsi networkportal list –adapter vmhba33

iSCSI Re-login

If you have an already established iSCSI session before port binding configuration, you can remove the existing iSCSI sessions and log in again for the port binding configuration to take effect.… Read More

In this post we will learn how to achieve multipathing when using software iSCSI adapters to connect to Storage Array.

What is Multipathing?

Multipathing is having more than one path to storage devices from your server. At a given time more than one paths are used to connect to the LUN’s on storage device. It provides the ability to load-balance between paths when all paths are present and to handle failures of a path at any point between the server and the storage. Multipathing is a de-facto standard for most Fibre Channel SAN environments.

Multipathing for software iSCSI

For environments which uses software iSCSI to connect to Storage Array, multipathing is possible at the VMkernel network adapter level, but it is not the default configuration. The default iSCSI configuration creates only one path from the software iSCSI adapter (vmhba) to each iSCSI target.

To enable failover at the path level and to load-balance I/O traffic between paths, we have to configure port binding to create multiple paths between the software iSCSI adapters on Esxi servers and the storage array.… Read More

Today I was reading a whitepaper on VMware FT and came across some cool facts. In this post I am going to share some excerpts from that whitepaper.

Server virtualization has become very popular and grown very fast in last few years and enterprise started to use virtualization more and more to gain the benefits provided by virtualization such as:

1: Higher server consolidation ratios.

2: Better resource utilization (Using DRS).

3: Lower power consumption (Leveraging DPM).

4: Increased workload mobility via technologies such as vMotion and svMotion.

Features such as Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and Distributed Power Management (DPM) are giving organizations a flexibility to go for a even higher consolidation ration than ever before. DRS is now a very trusted feature and almost all organizations are happy to use it in fully automated mode which was not the case earlier when DRS was introduced by VMware.

DRS and DPM complement the hardware evolution trends by applying dynamic resource allocation to lower the capital and operating costs in a datacenter.… Read More

VMware vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager

VMware vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager (MHM) is a vCenter component that provides an integrated platform for managing VMware and third-party hypervisors from a single interface.

The list of supported hypervisors can be summarized as below:

1. Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012
2. Microsoft Hyper-V for Windows Server 2012
3. Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
4. Microsoft Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 R2
5. Microsoft Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008

MHM supports heterogeneous hypervisors in VMware vCenter Server and it let administrators to choose which hypervisor meets a specific business unit’s needs within an organization. When a third-party host is added to vCenter Server, all virtual machines (VMs)  that exist on the host are discovered automatically and added to the third-party hosts inventory. Administrators can modify permissions, adjust server configurations, provision new VMs, migrate VMs from Hyper-V to ESXi and power hosts off and on.

Operations Supported by MHM:

• Manage Hyper-V hosts and virtual machines (VMs) from vCenter.

… Read More

over commitment in its simplest term means allocating more resources to virtual workloads then what is available at physical level. Most common resources that are over committed are memory and cpu.

A simple example of over commitment can be running 3 VM each with 4 GB RAM on an Esxi host which has only 8 GB RAM. In this case we have allocated 12 GB RAM to all VM’s collectively but at physical level (Esxi host) we have only 8 GB RAM available.

It is a general belief by most novice VMware admins that allocating more resources to virtual machines means better performance. When I started working with VMware I also used to think in the same way.

It was the vSphere Optimize and Scale training, where I learned this is not true and how over commitment can badly affect VM performance.

In this post I am trying to demonstrate the negative affects of CPU over commitment.… Read More

In part-1 of this series we have configured the vCO settings and added vCenter Server where we will be executing the workflows from vCO.

In this part we will see how to use vCO to execute the workflows. A lot of pre-defined workflows are already integrated in vCO and you can import or create your custom workflows as well.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series click on below link to get started:

Part-1-Installing & Configuring vCO

Login to vSphere Web-Client to get started

1: Open your web-browser and type https://vCenterFQDN:9443/vsphere-client/

2: We will find our vCO server under the vCenter Orchestrator plug-in.

3. Lets start with a very basic workflow of creating a new VM.

Click Workflows and expand the Library to see all the pre-configured workflows.
Expand vCenter –> Virtual Machine Management –> Basic
Right click “Create simple virtual machine”

4. A new window will pop-up where you have to provide the inputs.… Read More

vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) is a cool product from VMware which allows you to create tasks and automated workflows which and be run directly within vSphere Web Client or the vCenter Orchestrator Client.

vCO brings automation to the next level and helps admins, engineers to orchestrate and integrate your cloud with the rest of management systems.

There are a number of pre-made workflows integrated in vCO to get you started. Almost any task that can be performed in vCenter can be automated through vCO. With the use of AD integration, API’s and other 3rd party plugin’s vCO becomes more powerful and can save a lot of time for the VMware admins.

Workflows can be anything from simple workflows that contain a single task to say create a virtual machine, to complicated workflows containing many tasks that might build an entire solution and integrate with 3rd party plugins.

vCO is included with vCenter Server and it’s free!  … Read More