August 2009

You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2009.

Thinking Out Loud: HP Flex-10 Design Considerations

Friday, August 28, 2009 in Networking, Virtualization by slowe | 10 comments

Along with a number of other projects recently, I’ve also been spending time working with HP Virtual Connect Flex-10. You may have seen these (relatively) recent Flex-10 articles:

Using VMware ESX Virtual Switch Tagging with HP Virtual Connect
Using Multiple VLANs with HP Virtual Connect Flex-10
Follow-Up About Multiple VLANs, Virtual Connect, and Flex-10

As I began to work up some documentation for internal use at my employer, I asked myself this question: what are the design considerations for how an architect should configure Flex-10?

Think about it for a moment. In a “traditional” VMware environment, architects will place port groups onto vSwitches (or dvPort groups onto dvSwitches) based on criteria like physical network segregation, number of uplinks, VLAN support, etc. In a Flex-10 environment, those design criteria begin to change:

  • The number of uplinks doesn’t matter anymore, because bandwidth is controlled in the Flex-10 configuration. You want 1.5Gbps for VMotion? Fine, no problem. You want 500Mbps for the Service Console? Fine, no problem. You want 8Gbps for IP-based storage traffic? Fine, no problem. As long as it all adds up to 10Gbps, architects can subdivide the bandwidth however they desire. So the number of uplinks, from a bandwidth perspective, is no longer applicable.
  • Physical network segregation is a non-issue, because all the FlexNICs share the same LOM and will (as far as I know) all share the same uplinks. (In other words, I don’t think that LOM1:a can use one uplink while LOM1:b uses a different uplink.) You’ll physically distinct NICs in order to handle physically segregated networks. Of course, physically segregated networks will present a bit of challenge for blade environments anyway, but that’s beside the point.
  • VLAN support is a bit different, too, because of the fact that you can’t map overlapping VLANs to FlexNICs on the same LOM. In addition, because of the way VLANs work within a Virtual Connect environment, I don’t see VLANs being an applicable design consideration anyway; there’s too much flexibility in how VLANs are presented to servers for that to drive how networking should be set up.

So what are the design considerations for Flex-10 in VMware environments, then? What would drive an architect to specify multiple FlexNICs per LOM instead of just lumping everything together in a single 10Gbps pipe? Is bandwidth the only real consideration? I’d love to hear what others think. Let me hear your thoughts in the comments—thanks!

Tags: , , , ,

Virtualization Short Take #29

Thursday, August 27, 2009 in Networking, PASS, Storage, Virtualization by slowe | 2 comments

I wanted to go ahead and get another issue of Virtualization Short Takes out the door before VMworld, as I suspect that I’ll be covered up both during and for some time after VMworld. So, here’s my latest collection of links and articles about virtualization, storage, and anything else I find interesting.

  • Chad Sakac brings up an important issue for EMC CLARiiON users also using vSphere and iSCSI; be sure to read the full post for all the details. Basically, this bug in the FLARE code puts us back to using multiple IP subnets to scale iSCSI traffic. Bummer. I imagine they’ll get it fixed up pretty quick, but until then it’s back to the old way of scaling IP-based storage traffic. Chad’s posts on VMware-storage integration (Part 1 and Part 2) are good reads as well.
  • Nick Triantos weighs in with a good post on how to configure ALUA support and Round Robin I/O in vSphere. This looks useful; too bad the old NetApp gear I have in the lab won’t run the latest Data ONTAP version so I can test this myself. Oh, and you should also check out Nick’s post on the NetApp Collector and Analyzer for Virtual Environments, which looks like it might be a handy tool for sizing NetApp storage environments.
  • Duncan Epping points out a couple of issues related to VMFS block size in this post on snapshots and block size. Good find!
  • Ben Armstrong puts up a great post about competitive arguments. I have to say that I have a new respect for Ben after reading this post. He’d always presented himself very professionally, but his open approach to comparing virtualization products is very refreshing, and one that I wish more people would adopt. I’m particularly impressed that Ben quoted Proverbs 27:17 in his post.
  • Aaron Sweemer posted a newsletter from a co-worker on his site that has some great information. You should definitely have a look, I think you’ll find something useful there.
  • Rick Scherer posted the steps necessary to remove a rogue vCenter Chargeback plug-in. Useful, but I wish all plug-ins provided a mechanism like this.
  • Jason Nash brings to light a bug in Cisco Nexus 1000V when used in conjunction with CNAs. Be sure to have a look if this has any similarity to your environment. Like Jason, I have some Gen 1 Emulex CNAs so I may run into the same issue myself as I build out the Nexus hardware in the lab.
  • The Systems Engineer (no name provided) gives a handy one-line command to map ESX datastores to EMC CLARiiON LUNs. I’ll have to give this one a try once I get my CLARiiON up and running.
  • Somewhere along the way I picked up the URL to this VMware KB article about problems with iSCSI or NFS over an EtherChannel link. Hmmm, that looks interesting, but when you read the article it points out that the issue exists when you are using EtherChannel but the vSwitch is configured as “Route based on originating virtual port ID.” That’s a configuration mismatch—of course you’re going to have problems! Simply change the vSwitch to “Route based on ip hash” (the strongly recommended setting when using EtherChannel) and the problems go away.
  • Stevie Chambers (formerly of VMware, now with Cisco) posts about 10 technology advances since 2005. The article is mostly about the Intel Xeon 5500 CPUs and a couple other features specific to Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS); namely, the Palo adapter and the Catalina ASIC. While he wanders a bit, I think Stevie’s point is about how virtualization architects and operations staff need to understand the impact of these technologies and how they affect the virtualization solution—a useful point, indeed.
  • Paul Fazzone has a couple of great posts on the Cisco Nexus 1000V: first an article with an overview of VM network security with the Nexus 1000V, then a second article describing how the Nexus 1000V compares to multiple vSwitches. Both are good reads for people seeking a bit more information on deployment scenarios for the Nexus 1000V.
  • Computerworld posted this article about the 7 half-truths of virtualization. The underlying point behind all of these “half-truths” is that in order for an organization to really reap the benefits of virtualization, that organization needs to change, to adapt, and to grow with the virtualization initiative. If you just virtualize and don’t change anything else, your ROI will be limited at best. I particularly agree with #5: if you’re investigating VDI for short-term cost savings, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
  • This is kind of cool. I might put this on my home network.
  • I haven’t had my chance to talk with Arista yet, but I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more buzz around their announcement of vEOS. In fact, I had to hear about it (other than a very brief e-mail from Doug Gourlay) from a Cisco contact! How crazy is that? I suppose, as I mentioned on Twitter, that Arista is going to make a big push next week during VMworld 2009 in San Francisco.

That wraps up this edition of Virtualization Short Takes. Next week will be a busy week; look for lots of coverage from the conference in San Francisco as well as summaries of my vendor meetings (and there are lots of them!). Until then, take care!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Connecting Nexus 5000 to Older Gigabit Ethernet Switches

Thursday, August 27, 2009 in Networking by slowe | 12 comments

One of the things that confused me when I first started working with the Nexus 5000 line was how I would connect this 10Gb Ethernet switch to older 1Gb Ethernet switches, like the older Cisco Catalyst or HP ProCurve switches that I also have in the lab. It turns out—many of you probably already know this—that the first 8 ports on a Nexus 5010 and the first 16 ports on Nexus 5020 can be configured to operate as Gigabit Ethernet ports. You can use these ports to connect to older Gigabit Ethernet switches.

It’s really not too complicated. In this post, I’ll describe the configuration I used to connect a Cisco Catalyst 3560G and an HP ProCurve 2924 to a Cisco Nexus 5010. In both cases, I used a 2-port port channel to link the switches together. The one drawback is that the Nexus doesn’t participate in VTP, so all VLANs have to be manually defined on each switch independently. For my small lab environment, that’s not a showstopper, but it does underscore the fact the Nexus 5000 series is primarily target as access switches.

Here’s the configuration I used on the Nexus:

interface Ethernet1/3
switchport mode trunk
speed 1000
switchport trunk native vlan 999
channel-group 3 mode on

This configuration was repeated on 2 ports for the Cisco Catalyst 3560G and on 2 more ports for the HP ProCurve 2924. Obviously, each of them used a different port channel (channel-group 3 mode on for the Catalyst and channel-group 4 mode on for the ProCurve). Remember that you have to use one of the first 8 (for a Nexus 5010) or the first 16 (for a Nexus 5020) ports because these are the only ports that support setting the speed down to Gigabit Ethernet.

On the Cisco Catalyst 3560G, the configuration is almost identical:

interface GigabitEthernet1/10
switchport mode trunk
switchport trunk native vlan 999
channel-group 2 mode on

This configuration is repeated on two ports (same as the Nexus). Note that the channel-groups don’t have to match between the switches, only within each switch. There’s no need to specify the speed here on the Catalyst, as this is already a Gigabit Ethernet port. We only need to specify the speed on the Nexus because it won’t negotiate down to Gigabit Ethernet.

On the HP ProCurve, the configuration is pretty understandable. First, the trunk command creates the port channel:

trunk 23-24 Trk1 trunk

Then, the VLAN configuration specifies the same native (untagged) VLAN on the port channel:

vlan 999
name "Trunk-Native"
untagged 12,14,20,A2,Trk1
no ip address
exit

Once the configuration is done, you’ll need to insert RJ-45 SFPs (Cisco product number GLC-T, I believe) into the appropriate ports on the Nexus 5000 switch and then cable the switches together. If you didn’t make any typos along the way, then you should be good to go!

Tags: , , ,

New User’s Guide to Configuring Cisco MDS Zones via CLI

Monday, August 24, 2009 in Networking, Storage by slowe | 5 comments

I’m a bit new to the Cisco MDS family of Fibre Channel switches, so I’m sure that this information is “old hat” to the storage pros out there who’ve done it a million times. Hence, I’m labeling this one as a “new user” article. The topic of this post is how to use the command-line interface (CLI) to configure zones on a Cisco MDS 9000 series Fibre Channel switch.

I won’t go into great detail on the purpose of zones and that sort of thing; I’m sure it’s been covered in excruciating detail elsewhere. (Knowledgeable readers with any links to that sort of information are encouraged to share those links in the comments.) Instead, I’ll just focus on the mechanics of how it’s done.

First, create some aliases for your own use instead of having to remember the Fibre Channel World Wide Port Names (WWPNs). This will make life a lot easier, in my opinion. You create aliases using the fcalias command, like this (where applicable in this command and all other commands in this post, replace XXX with the appropriate VSAN number):

switch(config)# fcalias name stor-array-processor-a vsan XXX
switch(config-fcalias)# member pwwn AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF:00:11
switch(config-fclias)# exit
switch(config)#

Obviously, you’ll replace the fake WWPN I used in the command above with the correct WWPN for that device. Repeat this process for all the storage processor ports, server HBAs, etc. From this point forward, you can use the alias in place of the WWPN when creating zones. See, isn’t that easier?

Next, create zones. Each zone should have a single initiator and (ideally) a single target, although multiple targets is usually acceptable. To create a zone, use the zone and member commands like this:

switch(config)# zone name first-new-zone vsan XXX
switch(config-zone)# member fcalias stor-array-processor-a
switch(config-zone)# member fcalias server-hba
switch(config-zone)# exit
switch(config)#

Since each zone contains only a single initiator, you’ll need to repeat this process for each initiator.

Once you have all the zones created, next create a zoneset. You can create a new zoneset just using the zoneset command, or you can clone an existing zoneset with the zoneset clone command. In this case, I’ll clone an existing zoneset:

switch(config)# zoneset clone existing-zoneset new-zoneset vsan XXX

From here, you have a copy of the existing zoneset, which already had all the previously defined zones as members. Add the new zones you’ve defined to the zoneset like this:

switch(config)# zoneset new-zoneset vsan XXX
switch(config-zoneset)# member first-new-zone
switch(config-zoneset)# member second-new-zone
switch(config-zoneset)# exit

Finally, activate the zoneset:

switch(config)# zoneset activate name new-zoneset vsan XXX

Then save the configuration with copy runn start and you should be good to go! All you need to do now is configure and present storage from the storage array to the initiators. But that’s another topic for another post…

UPDATE: I’ve posted a follow-up to this article on managing zones via the CLI.

Tags: , , ,

HyTrust Appliance 1.5

Monday, August 24, 2009 in Networking, Security, Virtualization by slowe | No comments

Numerous other sites and numerous other bloggers have already covered the fact that HyTrust released version 1.5 of the HyTrust Appliance a couple of weeks ago. If you’re attending VMworld 2009 in San Francisco, I believe that HyTrust will be demonstrating the new version and some of its new features at the show, so be sure to stop by.

I actually had the opportunity to sit down with Eric Chiu, President and CEO of HyTrust, when I was in San Jose a few weeks ago. We talked extensively about the features that were coming in version 1.5 of the HyTrust appliance. He’s really excited about the features that have been added and the future plans that HyTrust has in place for the product.

Some of the new features included in version 1.5 include:

  • Full support for VMware vSphere (both ESX and ESXi)
  • Full support for VMware vCenter Server 2.5 and 4.0
  • Support for two-factor authentication using RSA SecurID
  • Label-based policy (akin to Web 2.0-style tagging)
  • VM-to-host control
  • VM-to-network segment control

Those last three features are pretty cool. The label-based policy engine is a new way for virtualization administrators to apply policy to VMs, hosts, and network segments that breaks out of the old tree or container styles of applying policy. For example, you could label (or tag) a VM as “PCI”, and then specify that VMs labeled “PCI” can only be started on ESX/ESXi hosts also labeled as “PCI”, or attached to network segments also labeled “PCI”. This latter functionality—the ability to control network segment attachment based on HyTrust’s labels—was functionality that HyTrust developed in close coordination with Cisco’s Nexus 1000V development team. Further integration between HyTrust and the Nexus 1000V includes the ability to apply policy based on VNtag information.

Taken together, you can see that this new functionality is quite powerful and gives administrators a very flexible yet extensive ability to apply policy throughout the environment in a consistent fashion.

For more information, please visit the HyTrust site directly, or stop by and see them at VMworld 2009 in San Francisco next week.

Tags: , , ,

My VMworld 2009 Schedule

Sunday, August 23, 2009 in Collaboration, Virtualization by slowe | No comments

Well, VMworld 2009 is nearly upon us. Like thousands of others, I’ll be there next week attending sessions, meeting with vendors, networking with other virtualization professionals, and—of course—covering all of it right here on my blog. So, if you aren’t able to make it next week, stay tuned here for my coverage of the conference. And, to give you a feel of what I’ll be doing and what sessions I’m planning on attending, here’s my VMworld 2009 conference schedule.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

All day Sunday I’ll be attending the VMware Partner Technical Advisory Board (PTAB) meeting. I won’t be able to provide any coverage of this event, as it’s all hush-hush NDA stuff.

Sunday evening I’ll be at the VMworld Underground event at The Thirsty Bear. We’ll be giving away at least one copy of my book, Mastering VMware vSphere 4, and networking with other virtualization geeks and gurus.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Monday morning is tied up with the remainder of the PTAB meeting, then I’m spending the rest of the day with my lovely wife, Crystal (whom many of you already know has been planning activities for non-attending spouses). We’ll most likely be at the Monday evening reception and possibly joining John Troyer’s tweetup as well.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Now things really get interesting. The VMworld conference really kicks off on Tuesday, and here’s Tuesday’s schedule:

8:00AM – VMworld 2009 Day 1 keynote (I’ll be liveblogging the keynote)
9:30AM – BC1500
11:00AM – BC3209
12:30PM – Book signing at the VMworld conference bookstore
1:00PM – LAB08
3:00PM – DV2484
4:30PM – BC2761

The day wraps up with dinner with some industry colleagues.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

7:00AM – Meeting with Virtual Instruments
8:00AM – VMworld 2009 Day 2 keynote (I’ll be liveblogging this keynote)
10:00AM – Meeting with Xangati
11:00AM – TA2467
12:30PM – LAB03
3:00PM – TA2384
4:30PM – Meeting with Tranxition
5:00PM – Meeting with a company still in stealth mode (no spoilers from me)
7:00PM – VMworld 2009 Party

Thursday, September 3, 2009

7:00AM – Meeting with MokaFive
8:15AM – Meeting with NetEx
9:00AM – Meeting with INX
9:30AM – TA3603
11:00AM – Meeting with another company still in stealth mode
12:00PM – Meeting with Seanodes
1:00PM – TA2259 (My session!)
2:00PM – Meeting with FalconStor
3:00PM – Meeting with Embotics
4:30PM – TA2259 again (Repeat session!)

The day (and the conference) wraps up with dinner with a friend and colleague. Crystal and I aren’t flying back East until Saturday morning, so we’ll spend Friday together seeing sights and spending some time together.

I’d be particuarly interested to know if there are specific questions that my readers would like me to ask some of the companies I’m meeting at the conference. Would readers like me to post some sort of summary of the meeting, like what sort of information was shared or my thoughts on the companies? I do plan on liveblogging the keynotes and as many of the sessions as possible, but I’m curious as to what other sort of coverage readers would be interested in seeing. Let me know in the comments.

Tags: , ,

VMworld 2009 Spouse Activities FAQs and Updates

Saturday, August 22, 2009 in Virtualization by slowe | 3 comments

Wow! The response to the spouse activities that my wife, Crystal (@crystal_lowe on Twitter) is organizing has been phenomenal. Almost overwhelming, in fact. (You have to keep in mind that she’s not getting paid to do this—it’s all volunteer work.)

With now only a week or so before the conference starts, here’s the latest update on spouse activities. Be sure to refer to this post for more details on the schedule of activities.

First, let’s tackle this year’s most frequently asked question: Can my spouse attend conference-related events with me? The answer: Yes, as long as the attendee has purchased a companion ticket. This ticket is $275 and will get your spouse in to Monday night’s events and Wednesday night’s party. This ticket can be purchased during online registration (or you can log back in if you already registered) or at the registration desk at VMworld. This is not something with which Crystal or I can help you. You need to talk to the VMworld registration team.

OK, with that out of the way, here are a few other updates:

  • Mel’s Diner: They do not have enough room to hold 100 people (Crystal originally planned on 35-40 participants) since they also need to be prepared for their other patrons. In addition, we’re not sure we can get the folks going to Korbel on Tuesday out the door in time for their arrival time at Korbel. If you are arriving on Sunday or Monday and participating in the Tuesday Korbel trip, please let Crystal know if you’d be interested in meeting before Tuesday so you can leave earlier for Korbel. We’re not sure what form this meeting before Tuesday would be; perhaps an informal gathering in our hotel lobby (we’re staying at the San Francisco Marriott) or perhaps another meeting at Mel’s. Either way, be sure to contact Crystal if you can meet before Tuesday.
  • To Go Lunches for Tuesday: Mel’s has graciously offered to provide “to go lunches” for the sightseeing on Tuesday. These will be from $6 to $10. If you are interested in buying one of these lunches, let Crystal know no later than Monday, August 24. If you don’t respond by 8/24, she can’t guarantee your inclusion in the order.
  • Korbel trip: This is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon (some spouses will be going to Korbel, some will be going sightseeing). However, as mentioned earlier, Crystal is concerned about getting done at Mel’s Diner in time for the Korbel group to make it on time. Also, drivers are needed! Please notify Crystal ASAP if you are willing to drive.
  • Alcatraz and Napa tickets: Remember, you need to purchase these on your own! Please purchase your tickets right away if you haven’t already. Otherwise, you could miss out on participating because the tours will be sold out. Also, please let Crystal know whether you’ve booked the Day Tour (Alcatraz) or Combination Tour (Alcatraz and Angel Island).

Crystal has been keeping in touch with most everyone via e-mail with this information as well, but I wanted to be sure to post something here to help spread the word. She is very excited (but also very nervous) about the enormous response. Anyone who is interested and willing to help out, please contact Crystal right away. I know she’d appreciate it.

That’s it for now. See you in San Francisco!

Tags: , ,

Planning for FCoE in Your Data Center Today

Saturday, August 22, 2009 in Storage, Virtualization by adelp | 6 comments

By Aaron Delp
Twitter: aarondelp
FriendFeed (Delicious, Twitter, & all my blogs in one spot): aarondelp

This week I’ve had the privilege of attending a Cisco Nexus 5000/7000 class. I have learned a tremendous amount about FCoE this week and after some conversations with Scott about the topic, I wanted to tackle it one more time from a different point of view. I have included a list of some of Scott’s FCoE articles at the bottom for those interested in a more in-depth analysis.

Disclaimer: I am by no means an FCoE expert! My working knowledge of FCoE is about four days old at this point. If I am incorrect in some of my situations below, please let me know (keep it nice and professional, people!) and I will be happy to make adjustments.

If you are an existing VMWare customer today with FC as your storage transport layer, should you be thinking about FCoE? How would you get started? What investments can you make in the near future to prepare you for the next generation?

These are questions I am starting to get from my customers in planning/white board sessions around VMware vSphere and the next generation of virtualization. The upgrade to vSphere is starting to prompt planning and discussions around the storage infrastructure.

Before I tackle the design aspect, let me start out with some hardware and definitions.

Cisco Nexus 5000 series switch: The Nexus 5K is a Layer 2 switch that is capable of FCoE and can provide both Ethernet and FC ports (with an expansion module). In addition to Ethernet switching, the switch also operates as an FC fabric switch providing full fabric services, or it can be set for N_Port Virtualization (NPV) mode. The Nexus 5K can’t be put in FC switch mode and NPV mode at the same time. You must pick one or the other.

N_Port Virtualization (NPV) mode: NPV allows the Nexus 5K to act as a FC “pass thru” or proxy. NPV is great for environments where the existing fabric is not Cisco and merging the fabrics could be ugly. There is a downside to this. In NPV mode, no targets (storage arrays) can be hung off the Nexus 5K. This is true for both FC and FCoE targets.

Converged Network Adapter (CNA): A CNA is single PCI card that contains both FC and Ethernet logic, negating the need for separate cards, separate switches, etc.

Now that the definitions and terminology is out of the way, I see four possible paths if you have FC in your environment today.

1. FCoE with a Nexus 5000 in a non-Cisco MDS environment (merging)

In this scenario, the easiest way to get the Nexus on the existing non-Cisco FC fabric is to put the switch in NPV mode. You could put the switch in interop mode (and all the existing FC switches), but it is a nightmare to get them all talking and you often lose vendor specific features in interop mode. Plus, to configure interop mode, the entire fabric has to be brought down. (You do have redundant fabrics, right?)

With the Nexus in NPV mode, what will it do? Not much. You can’t hang storage off of it. You aren’t taking advantage of Cisco VSANs or any other features that Cisco can provide. You are merely a pass thru. The zoning is handled by your existing switches; your storage is off the existing switches, etc.

Why would you do this? By doing this, you could put CNAs in new servers (leaving the existing servers alone) to talk to the Nexus. This will simplify the server side infrastructure because you will have fewer cables, cards, switch ports, etc. Does the cost of the CNA and new infrastructure offset the cost of just continuing the old environment? That is for you to decide.

2. FCoE with a Nexus 5000 in a non-Cisco MDS environment (non-merging)

Who says you have to put the Nexus into the existing FC fabric? We have many customers that purchase “data centers in a box”. By that I mean a few servers, FC and/or Ethernet switches, storage, and VMware all in one solution. This “box” sits in the data center and the network is merged with the legacy network, but we stand up a Cisco SAN next to the existing non-Cisco SAN and just not let them talk to each other. In this instance, we would use CNAs in the servers, Nexus as the switch, and you pick a storage vendor. This will work just like option 3.

3. FCoE with a Nexus 5000 in a Cisco MDS environment

Now we’re talking. Install the Nexus in FC switch mode, merge it with the MDS fabric, put CNAs in all the servers and install the storage off the Nexus as either FC or FCoE. You’re off to the races!

You potentially gain the same server side savings by replacing FC and Ethernet in new servers with CNAs. You are able to use all of the Cisco sexy features of FCoE. Nice solution if the cost is justified in your environment.

4. Keep the existing environment and use NFS to new servers

What did I just say? Why would I even consider that option?

OK, this last one is a little tongue-in-cheek for customers that are already using FC. The NFS vs. traditional storage for VMWare is a bit of a religious debate. I know you aren’t going to sway me and I know I’m not going to sway you.

I admit I’m thinking NetApp here in a VMWare environment; I’m a big fan so this is a biased opinion. NetApp is my background but other vendors play in this space as well. I bet Chad will be happy to leave a comment to help tell us why (and I hope he does!).

Think of it this way. You’re already moving from FC cards to CNAs. Why not buy regular 10Gb Ethernet cards instead? Why not just use the Nexus 5K as a line-rate, non-blocking 10Gb Ethernet switch? This configuration is very simple compared to FCoE at the Nexus level and management of the NetApp is very easy! Besides, you could always turn up FCoE on the Nexus (and the NetApp) at a future date.

In closing, I really like FCoE but as you can see it isn’t a perfect fit today for all environments. I really see this taking off in 1-2 years and I can’t wait. Until then, use caution and ask all the right questions!

If you are interested in some more in-depth discussion, here are links to some of Scott’s articles on FCoE:

Continuing the FCoE Discussion
Why No Multi-Hop FCoE?
There Might Be an FCoE End to End Solution

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Virtualization Short Take #28

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 in Virtualization by slowe | 2 comments

Welcome to another edition of Virtualization Short Takes. Here are a few links I’ve gathered over the past few weeks that I found interesting, useful, or that just plain caught my eye. I hope you find something helpful!

  • Back in early July Brad Hedlund (of InternetworkExpert.org) published this VMware vSwitch design of using Cisco UCS with the “Palo” adapter. If you’ve read any of my UCS articles (here’s a good one), you’ll know that the Palo adapter is the adapter that can be carved up (via SR-IOV) into multiple virtual instances. As Brad points out in his article, this allows you to mimic today’s multi-NIC implementations using the Palo adapter. This design is interesting, but more interesting is this more recent design incorporating the Nexus 1000V and the Palo adapter. In fact, I’ll be referring to that second article myself, as in that article Brad lays out how to run the Nexus 1000V VSM on top of the VEMs it is managing (an interesting situation I’ve wrestled with myself). Keep the designs coming, Brad!
  • A couple of different sites have provided more information on how to use software iSCSI with multiple paths in VMware vSphere 4. This site has a good write-up with screenshots, and Rich Brambley discusses it on his site as well. I haven’t had the opportunity to try this yet myself, but I hope to get the chance soon.
  • If you are looking for a decent high-level overview of the Cisco Nexus 1000V, Ted Romer has just what you need.
  • Running your VMware vSphere environment on an EMC Celerra over NFS? You’ll want to have a look here—there’s an important patch you need to install.
  • Here’s an article on how to enable port forwarding in NAT mode on VMware Fusion. Sweet!
  • Are you ready for vSphere, or are you like this gentleman? It’s a tough position for VMware—many users are happy with ESX 3.5 and don’t see an immediate need to upgrade. I’d be interested in hearing how many others are holding off because ESX 3.5 is “good enough.”
  • Steve Chambers has a good article on vSphere VMM execution modes. I’m not sure what this has to do with Cisco UCS other than the information is related to the Xeon 5500 series of Intel CPUs, but the article is useful nevertheless.
  • Did you know about the VMware Knowledge Base Weekly Digest?
  • Dave Lawrence aka the VMguy has a useful post on Microsoft Cluster Services (MSCS, now known as Windows Failover Clustering I believe) on VMware vSphere. It’s worth a read if this particular configuration is something that you need, although I suspect that VMware Fault Tolerance will lessen the need for this configuration somewhat.
  • Forbes Guthrie has some useful VMware vSphere notes here; might be useful for those preparing for/refreshing for the VCP4 beta exams that are taking place at VMworld 2009 in San Francisco.
  • Broadening the virtualization scope, John Howard has a good post on how to remove disabled network adapters from the parent partition. (Wait a minute, isn’t that supposed to be called the management OS?)
  • Here’s a good idea brought to light by Mike Laverick. Why didn’t VMware think of this?
  • Duncan points out a number of useful white papers in this post. Although the title names only the vSphere CPU scheduler white paper, Duncan also provides links for a white paper on VMM execution modes and FT architecture and performance. Great work, Duncan!

That’s all I have this time around for virtualization links. Along the way, I’ve also run into a few other links that might be useful as well:

Configuring Virtual Fibre Channel (vFC) Interfaces
vPC (Virtual Port Channel) and the Nexus Platform
Securing COMSTAR and VMware iSCSI Connections
HA in Cisco UCS Menlo Card

Feel free to share your thoughts, perspectives, or other interesting/useful links in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Tags: , , , ,

Mastering VMware vSphere 4 is Out!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 in Virtualization by slowe | 28 comments

As many of you already know, since the beginning of the year I’d been working on a virtualization book, Mastering VMware vSphere 4. Today I received word from my publisher that the book has been officially released from the warehouse! It’s finally out!

I can’t tell you how excited I am about this release. It’s been so much work, and now I’ll finally get to see the fruits of my labor in real, physical form! As soon as I read the message from my editor I called my wife, Crystal (follow her on Twitter). I think she’s more excited than I am!

I’m sure there will be lots of questions about when Amazon will start shipping pre-orders. Although the book has been released from the publisher’s warehouse, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Amazon will start shipping out right away. I’m hoping that pre-orders will start shipping very soon, and as soon as I have more information I’ll post something here on the site as well as post an update via Twitter (feel free to follow me as well). As of right now, I don’t have any firm information on when pre-orders will start shipping, so I can’t really give you any dates. Sorry, folks!

Thanks to everyone who has helped raise awareness of the book and thanks to everyone who has already pre-ordered a copy. Your support has been tremendous! Feel free to continue to spread the word!

Tags: , , ,

« Older entries