Virtual Servers

Virtual Servers (53)

In this article you will learn about 5 freeware tools that can be useful in everyday work of VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V virtual environment administrator. All these tools were developed by Veeam Company and focus on backup related tasks, reports generation and operational monitoring of virtualization systems based on VMware and Hyper-V. So, in this post we will describe the following products:

• Veeam Backup Free Edition for VMware and Hyper-V
• Veeam ONE Free Edition for VMware and Hyper-V
• Veeam Extended Generic Report Library for Microsoft System Center
• Veeam Stencils for VMware и Hyper-V
• Veeam Management Pack for VMware

@ECHO OFF

rem The script for English version of Hyper-V server
rem Allows to connect VM to Hyper-V with all snapshots and virtual hard drives without exporting.
rem apart from NTFS security on the basis of accounts and groups, Hyper-V sets security settings for files and virtual machines
rem this script makes a hard link for virtual machine XML file and places it in c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Virtual Machines\
rem and provides necessary permissions to this hard link and files of virtual machine.
rem in menu item 1 adds VM manually, item 2 adds manually VM snapshots, item 3 adds VM automatically

Task conditions:

What we have: a folder with configuration files of virtual machine and snapshots (xml) and files of virtual disks and snapshots vhd and avhd.

The folder remained after system partition was lost and after copying virtual machine instead of exporting it.

The goal: connect virtual machine with all snapshots.

So, let’s create a new virtual machine in the folder c:\VMs and name it DeleteMe.

On 25th of October Veeam released its new product – Veeam Backup & Replication 6.5. New version includes a number of interesting improvements, one of which is VM recovery from SAN snapshots. Below we provide a short input into this technology.

A few words about HP Left Hand Storage data storage system

With an advent of virtual environments, companies have a chance to start several VM on one server. With time the number of servers and VMs increases and they require more and more capacity and performance from data storage systems. This problem is resolved by adding extra disk enclosures until the controller pair of DSS becomes a narrow space in infrastructure development. In the event of such critical situation, companies usually decide to replace the controller pair (upgrade), or install a new data storage system.

b2ap3_thumbnail_iStock_000017706322XSmall.jpgJudging by the number of feedbacks that we receive (first of all to our mail box), the knowledge of how to install Snow Leopard in VMWare desperately needs to be systematized. So lets do it then.

Instruments and materials

  1. 1. A computer with Intel processor with SSE3 and above. Core Duo, i5, i7 definitely fit in. As far as Pentium-4 variations are concerned, I am confused. Possible problems with AMD. I have this computer for Windows 7, though Linux most probably also fits (sorry, didn’t try out as well).
  2. VMWare Workstation 7 or VMWare Player 3.
  3. Boot CD with necessary modules.
  4. Snow Leopard Upgrade DVD or its image.

So I decided to move virtual machine from VMWare to VirtualBox. After reading that VirtualBox can directly work with vmdk files, I created new virtual machine, connected image and launched it…

Then I was surprised by: Error loading operating system. I thought: “What nonsense.” I turned off VirtualBox and turned on VMware, but again same mistake...

b2ap3_thumbnail_Windows-Server-2008-Hyper-V-logo-v_23.pngIntroduction

In this post we are going to talk about how to install and configure Microsoft Hyper-V Server as well as about some hidden rocks and ways of avoiding them.

This is kind of an installation guide for newbies as well as for advanced users who will be able to get some useful information form the article’s subsections.

Description

MS Hyper-V Server is a crippled version of MS Server 2008 R2 in Core mode (i.e. practically no graphical interface) with installed role of Hyper-V and nothing more. According to Wiki, Hyper-V Server is distributed for free, which along with easy controls and integration with MS products makes it a very attractive hypervisor. In addition, it has quite high performance indicators which means that the resources of host machine will be directed towards the operation of the services we require.

Below you will find a list of VMware related acronyms and abbreviations:


AAM Automated Availability Manager
ADM Application Discover Manager
APM Application Performance Manager
BYOD Bring Your Own Device
CB Chargeback
CBM Chargeback Manager
CBRC Content Based Read Cache
CF Cloud Foundry
CIM Common Interface Model
CIQ Capacity IQ

b2ap3_thumbnail_iStock_000002360424XSmall.jpgRecommendations on how to recover data from VMware safely

  • Extract backups to another partition. It will help to make sure that all backed up files are operable before possible rewriting of data on a functioning partition.
  • If RAID array failed, test backup copy on another drive or create an image of each RAID disk before starting array rebuild. Sometimes RAID rebuild works incorrectly and it may exacerbate the problem.
  • Do not create new files on the disk from which you intend to recover data as well as discontinue using virtual machines until the important data is recovered. New files may rewrite the files you need to recover if extraction from backup copy is not successful. Running virtual machines that use snapshots and thin virtual disks also may rewrite files that you need to recover.

b2ap3_thumbnail_iStock_000018232683XSmall_20131120-121148_1.jpgIn this article I will tell you about one of the features of Veeam Backup & Replication 6.5, namely that which provides effective VM (virtual machine) recovery from SAN snapshots.

HP LeftHand Storage

Virtual environment provides opportunity to run several VMs on a single server. Usually when a company expands, amount of its servers and VMs increases too. As a result capacity and performance of SAN does not longer suffice. A common solution is to add disk enclosures until a pair of controller units becomes a weak spot in the infrastructure development. If such problem occurs, a company upgrades a pair of controller units or installs a new SAN.

From the point of view of its architecture, HP SAN Left Hand Storage (HP SAN) differs considerably from traditional SANs in capacity and performance. HP SAN has no separate controllers or disk enclosures. However, each array has its own resources (processor, HDDs, cache memory, I/O ports). That’s why besides storage capacity, addition of new arrays facilitates higher processor performance, provides additional cache memory, etc.

So, HP SAN is a cluster of storage nods. Each nod is a fully-featured data warehouse. Data are distributed automatically between nods. This process is controlled by a single console. Addition of new nods facilitates increase of performance and reliability of HP SAN.

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