vCenter Orchestrator Trouble: SQL Server Connection refused: connect
If your trying to configure vCenter Orchestrator to use a local Microsoft SQL Express database and you get the error: Unknown host: Error when connecting to host localhost/127.0.0.1, port 1433: Connection refused: connect
You need to change a few options on your SQLExpress server to accept this connection.
- Launch SQL Server Configuration Manager
- Navigate to SQL Server Network Configuration->Protocols for SQLEXPRESS on the left column
- Double-Click on TCP/IP
- Ensure Enabled is set for Yes
- Ensure Listen All is set for Yes
- Click the IP Addresses Tab
- Scroll to the bottom and find IPAll
- Set TCP Port to 1433 for IPAll
- Hit Ok, and Ok to the dialog box that pops up
- Navigate to SQL Server Services on the left column
- Right-Click SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) and select Restart
- Try again and your Orchestrator server should be able to connect to the database now
Problems Registering Dell Management vCenter Plugin with vCenter 5
So you decided to take the plunge and buy the Dell Management Center vCenter Plugin but it's not registering with your vCenter? In my case, the virtual appliance spit out all kinds of errors--SSL errors, unknown errors, timeouts...
Well, the fix for me was simple--apparently Dell doesn't make the latest version avaliable online, you may have downloaded an older version from Dell's site and Dell expects you to simply update the appliance online after you deploy it.
To do this:
- Login to the appliance admin portal with your previously set admin password (https://[ApplianceIP]/DellAdminPortal/index.html)
- Now navigate to Appliance Management on the left column
- On this page you'll see 2 lines near the top: Current Virtual Appliance Version and Available Virtual Appliance Version, if the Available version is higher then the current, click Update Virtual Appliance to install the update
- It takes about 5-10min to complete, the virtual appliance will reboot at some point, once you get a login screen at the console it should be ready to proceed
- Go back to the appliance URL in your web browser and login (https://[ApplianceIP]/DellAdminPortal/index.html)
- From here you'll see a link to register with vCenter near the top--click that
- Enter the IP or Hostname for your vCenter server
- Provide User Credentials with admin access in vCenter & hit register
- Once registration is complete you will get a message to relaunch a vSphere Client and connect to the vCenter to access the plugin, so do that and go about configuring the rest of the plugin.
Automated P2V Cleanup: Remove/Uninstall Dell OpenManage & Broadcom/Intel Drivers v1.2
This is another updated version with more Intel removal goodness...see my previous post for more information on Automated P2V Cleanup: Remove/Uninstall Dell OpenManage & Broadcom/Intel Drivers Updated so it removes all the new Dell/Intel/Broadcom stuff released since the last update.
This Removes:
- Dell OpenManage Server Administrator
- Broadcom Drivers and Management Applications
- Broadcom NetXtreme II Driver Installer
- Intel(R) PROSet for Wired Connections
- Intel(R) PRO Network Connections
Desktop Engineering Blog – DesktopEngi.com
Couple of my buddy's just threw this blog up: http://desktopengi.com. Check them out, they have a very strong focus on Desktop Engineering/DevOps.
Some of the things you will find there:
- Scripts to assist with a Google Apps Migration/Support Google Apps Long-Term
- A Clean Login Script to handle multiple drive mappings on a per dept basis that ingests data from OUs and CSVs making changes a snap
- Identity Management Scripts - Automation of Sec. Groups, etc.
- *Very* Comprehensive Shortcut creation script--good for software deployment folks
VMware give us TechNet-esc Subscriptions? Please?
This post is essentially a +1 for Mike Laverick's campaign...
There is alot of buzz in the VMware Community about VMTN (VMware Technology Network) Subscriptions. These subscriptions were the equivalent of Microsoft's TechNet Subscriptions. The idea is to give IT Professionals licensed copies of "complete" Microsoft software for evaluation, testing and troubleshooting--without a time limit or feature limitations. Microsoft bundles in some E-Learning and Support Tickets, as well as betas. VMware had a similar offering a few years back but discontinued it. Well now the community has banded together to ask VMware to recreate this offering. It would be very benefitial for VMware to do, I'm sure there are many folks that are using trial software and registering multiple email accounts to get new evaluation keys just to lab something, or evaluate a new solution. VMware could make some profit by providing a paid subscription to access this software for any IT Professional to learn with.
Microsoft has basically 3 offerings when it comes to this realm:
- TechNet Subscriptions - Evaluation Licenses with no time limit - $199/yr or $349/yr (renewals cost less) depending on level purchased
- MSDN Subscriptions - Software Development & Testing licenses - Varies greatly, from $699-$11,899 depending on level purchased
- Action Pack Subscriptions - Internal-use licenses (Only for Microsoft Partners) - $299/yr
- NFR - Not-for-resale licenses - Training/Demonstration (Only for VMware Partners) - Free, but requires a specific partnership level based on revenue
- IUL - Internal-use licenses - Discounted Licenses (Only for VMware for Partners) - Costs vary based on license, discounts unknown
P2V Tips
Pre-P2V
- Cleanup Irrelevant Data
- Don't bring over that downloads folder on every server full of drivers, hotfixes, patches, service packs, etc. Remember storage is now shared among many VMs now, try not to duplicate things like that.
- Stop transactional services during P2V
- MSSQL, mySQL, etc.
- Disable Windows Updates
- You don't want your source to reboot due to automatic updates mid-P2V
- Do not resize volumes during P2V
- Resizing volumes will increase P2V time significantly because instead of doing a block-level copy the convert would have to use file-level copy
- Set Target disks to Thin
- Take advantage of thin provisioning--make sure you have vCenter Alarms setup to alert you when datastores near capacity
Post-P2V
- Move the Page File to a seperate volume (if it isn't already)
- If you are moving away from traditional backup methods to new vStorage methods you can't exclude the page file from backups typically--however if it's on a dedicated volume (separate vmdk) you can typically exclude it then
- Don't Team NICs
- You should build redundancy at the vSwitch level and use a single NIC for the VM (having a separate NIC connected to another vSwitch for backups, or Internal/External Interfaces is still ok)
- Cleanup
- Get rid of all the extra software/agents physical servers require--Dell OpenManage, HP Insight, Broadcom/Intel Teaming Utilities - If your using Dell Servers use my Cleanup Script to automate the process
My South Florida VMUG Presentation from 10/6/2011
Here is my session on a quick overview of vCenter Orchestrator.
Thanks to Tony the VMUG Leader for posting the recordings from the Q3 SFL VMUG.
Links I spoke about:
- Tutorials & Tons of other vCO info - http://vcoteam.info
- NetApp vCO Plugin - http://communities.netapp.com/groups/vmware-vcenter-orchestrator-plug-in-for-netapp-v10-beta
- VIX vCO Plugin - http://labs.vmware.com/flings/vix-vco
vCenter Orchestrator Script – Increment VM Name by 1
Simple little code snippet that you might find handy to use in vCenter Orchestrator. I am working on a workflow that needs to clone a VM and the name should increment by 1 for example, we want to clone appweb1 (but we already have appweb2, 3, 4) so we want the new VM to be appweb5.
Inside a new Scriptable task create an output parameter called newvmname and make it's source itself. Then use this bit 'o code:
var vms = System.getModule("com.vmware.library.vc.vm").getAllVMsMatchingRegexp("appweb[0-9]");
for (var i=0; i System.debug("Counting VMs:" + i);
}
var newvmname = "appweb" + i;
If anyone has a better way to do this I'd love to hear it, I know you should be able to use the getAllVMsMatchingRegexp as an action inside the Schema but it seemed clunky to do that then pass to a Scriptable task when you can do it all in one object.
Rapid Provisioning of 180+ ESXi Servers with SD Cards
We needed a fast way to provision 180+ ESXi servers to boot from SD Cards, ESXi 4.1 introduced Scripted Installation to ESXi (the feature has been in ESX classic for awhile now)
However it is limited:
- Installation on USB Devices (SD cards, flash drives, etc.) isn't currently supported.
Uhoh, our plan is to use SD Cards in Dell PowerEdge T610s and Dell PowerEdge 29xx (I'll explain how on the 29xx in a later post) for our installs. This isn't good...
We figured we could build a golden image and clone our SD cards from that, but cloning the SD cards proved difficult. I tried a lot of different apps and nothing seemed to work--we had trouble with DD even. Then I stumbled across this blog post from Luke: Fast deployment of vSphere ESXi 4.0 running on a 1GB SD-Card
Luke recommended WinImage to do this cloning, I still couldn't get WinImage to work at first but a quick email to Luke cleared up my troubles (thanks again Luke)
It was good to see my process to create the gold image was similar to how Luke did his just a few minor variations:
Creating the Gold Image
- Use a spare box for these steps--
- Install the Dell customized ESXi 4.1 onto the SD Card
- The Dell customized ESXi isn't actually required--from what I've read it simply updates support links and other textual things to refer to Dells support pages for various things...but whatever.
- Add the host in vMA so I can install OpenManage 6.3.0
- OpenManage for ESXi is provided as a VIB and I choose to install via vMA
- Set root password
- Configure CIMOEMProvidersEnabled
- Configure NTP
- Add your license key--even if it's ESXi free VMware will provide a license key -- otherwise you'll start the evaluation clock ticking...
- Create custom roles
- By default there are only three roles: No access, Read-only, and Administrator
- I create an additional role, Virtual machine user with basic access to work on VMs (Power on/off, Remote Control, Mount Discs, etc.)
- Ensure networking is set for DHCP
- Ensure no datastores exist
- Shutdown & yank the SD card out of the host
- Clone to a file using WinImage
- Clone from a file to a new SD card using WinImage
- Test
- Profit $$$
Building a Cost-Effective vSphere ESXi 5.0 Home Lab
Many folks have blogged about building a home lab--I have an old lab that really draws some power and not really giving me what I'd like. With that in mind I set out to build a new lab but with the intent of being as cost-effective as possible. Lots of folks are running T610s and T110s but those draw a lot of power and cost quite a bit more then I'd like. Others white-box some awesome labs for cheap but they still consume a lot of power.
I came across the HP Micro Servers that seem to be gaining alot of popularity, but opted against them for 2 reasons:
- They use older generation AMD processors - I can white-box similar functionality with the latest generation processors for less money
- HP - 'nuff said
- Motherboard: ASUS E35M1-M Pro
- RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL
Twitter Feed
- My contribution to the #VMTNSubscriptionMovement http://t.co/lKBxhvQ #VMware is good at listening to the community, hope they deliver...
- @gf3 Your node.js IRC lib the server-side opens the IRC socket?
- @gf3 Hey man, websockets noob here. I was hoping web sockets = raw sockets but that is not the case right?
- Need 50lb of bacon bits cheap? http://digs.by/ibWKj9
- @Morgon Thanks for running MGC as long as you did--Hopefully ripples will be heard by M$ and they'll fix the issues finally
Tags
- 17426 – SoFL Smarthome
- Desktop Engi
- Frag the Weak
- New Universe Mall
- Requeny Solutions
- Salvagg
- Technology Orgasm
- Truckputer
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