Virtual (VMware) Guru's wanted!

Shaz]sigh[;17881297 said:
DRS can be used in a BCP situation with stretched L2 or Cisco OTV etc. HA would be used in DR with stretched L2/OTV again.

Both solutions would need sync mirroring or something like EMC VPLEX.
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How would DRS be used for BCP? I'm genuinely curious.

You also don't need any sort of clever networking, a bog standard routed network would do it with straight HA (or better still SRM) provided you've got SAN replication sorted
 
Essentially L3 is dead. L2 is the future.

By having an L2 network, you can take advantage of not having to route. Having hosts in the same network, regardless of physical placement means you can take advantage of normal L2 operations.

The classic example for DRS in BCP is, if in the USA and you know a tornado is approaching you, you can vMotion your datacenter to a different datacenter.
 
iaind said:
How would DRS be used for BCP? I'm genuinely curious.

You also don't need any sort of clever networking, a bog standard routed network would do it with straight HA (or better still SRM) provided you've got SAN replication sorted
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SRM is evil with the new licensing. Still the only supported method for resignaturing VMs on an alternate site though.
 
Shaz]sigh[;17882468 said:
Essentially L3 is dead. L2 is the future.

By having an L2 network, you can take advantage of not having to route. Having hosts in the same network, regardless of physical placement means you can take advantage of normal L2 operations.

The classic example for DRS in BCP is, if in the USA and you know a tornado is approaching you, you can vMotion your datacenter to a different datacenter.
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Erm....i don't think you understand what DRS does

You could do exactly that without DRS. Unless you hooked up some weather monitoring station to max out the CPU on your host in the datacenter that would be affected, DRS would do nothing for you
 
iaind said:
Erm....i don't think you understand what DRS does

You could do exactly that without DRS. Unless you hooked up some weather monitoring station to max out the CPU on your host in the datacenter that would be affected, DRS would do nothing for you
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vMotion would be comical without DRS. i'm very aware of what DRS does. DRS also ties in to HA. For example, 4.1 will attempt to defrag clusters using DRS so that HA can power on larger VMs.

When I say DRS I mean DRS cluster. Thus implying that any host within a cluster shares storage. You can then take advantage of storage federation to teleport VMs at will in the same subnet to different geographical locations.

You're speaking from a marketing view of DRS (it does x) as opposed to the architectural view of DRS (it enables x, x and x).

Not quite sure how to respond any more politely to that reply so i'll stop :D
 
DRS obviously makes vMotion much more useful, but vMotion does serve a purpose without. I did a build in a school this weekend, they had just bought a fibre storage array and the essentials plus package - which has vMotion and HA but no DRS. The setup allows them to move machines at will between servers in different physical locations and recover automatically from a host failure.... Kind of what you were saying you'd use DRS for

DRS is a product, a single module that does many things - none of them are disaster recovery related.

Saying "oh, I meant a cluster" was a nice bit of backtracking ;)

DRS does resource balancing and scheduling. That's it.
 
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Interesting discussion taking place here since I last checked this thread. The environment I work in at the moment isn't really huge so DRS probably isn't needed as much to automate resource allocation.

As far as I understand it, vMotion automates HA in the fact that it keeps things running regardless of most localised issues. If there is a problem with the VM or the HOST then it will automate the process of moving the VM somewhere were the resource demands are less whilst at the same time not causing disruption to users.

I will have a look at it in more depth I think.

I have more questions regarding this area, I am being interviewed for a new job. I am confident that my experience/skills are what they are looking for as I have been shortlisted.

For any IT managers out there or people with relevant experience, what sort of questioning would you ask in an interview to a candidate other than the stock interview questions, "what are your weaknesses, etc" ?

Specifically relating to Virtual Infrastructures or IT related roles that are reasonably technical.
 
Well surely you should be expecting technical questions on ESX?

Command line stuff, Advantages of HA, What would you do in this situation, troubleshooting ESX (i.e. how to get log bundles, how to view them, troubleshooting at the command line)



M.
 
Yeah, I believe there will be a certain amount of technical questions involving ESX directly, which I'm not too worried about. I will be able to answer them or not at the end of the day, depending on what they ask.

I suppose just be prepared in and around the subject matter and do the usual background work and see what happens.


Troubleshooting will be high on the list, of course m4cc45. I use a variety of collection log files, host web interface, vCentre and get them from the host service console. I do not think they are looking for expert command line skills, just the ability to know what to look for and where to go to fix it.

I have prepared material to discuss with them regarding the OP subject matter which is where I believe a great deal of the questioning may come from.
 
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Wondered when you'd show up Chicco :) I've seen you discuss VM stuff before and seem to know your stuff.

Do you have anything further to add along the lines of building resilient virtualised solutions and how to demonstrate resilience? Do you have anything futher to add?

Cheers all!
 
Knubje said:
Yeah, I believe there will be a certain amount of technical questions involving ESX directly, which I'm not too worried about. I will be able to answer them or not at the end of the day, depending on what they ask.

I suppose just be prepared in and around the subject matter and do the usual background work and see what happens.


Troubleshooting will be high on the list, of course m4cc45. I use a variety of collection log files, host web interface, vCentre and get them from the host service console. I do not think they are looking for expert command line skills, just the ability to know what to look for and where to go to fix it.

I have prepared material to discuss with them regarding the OP subject matter which is where I believe a great deal of the questioning may come from.
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It depends if there's a technical test mate - if there is then I'd be definitely looking at the command line. It depends how the job is worded if it's for a virtualisation role or if it's for a wintel role with virtualisation thrown in.



M.
 
Bearing in mind the current release of ESX will be the last to have a service console, I'd be disappointed if companies were looking for big skills in that area!
 
You still need command line skills to install management agents (such as HP Systems Insight Manager) and enable stuff like SNMP.

Also VMware Management Assistant is gaining speed. Just because they're removed the functionality directly you can still utilise it indirectly (i.e. VMA).

The thing is, with a Hypervisor such as ESXi, you're still going to need those skills. I've been using ESX for around 6 years and I've learnt a lot in the last few weeks doing the ESX to ESXi migrations. Knowing the command line means you can script more on the installs as well meaning you have to do a lot less when you come to install your hosts.

This is only my opinion. I've been for Virtualisation jobs and sat written tests which had a ton of stuff around the command line (and will do for several months as people will still be migrating or using older versions of ESX).

What I'm basically saying is that knowing it to a decent level is only going to help you with ESX and ESXi.



M.
 
m4cc45 said:
Recent post

M.
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I take your point about CLI stuff. Is there anywhere to start to look at the basics and brush up?

I'm familiar with some basic linux command and anytime I've ever had to use CLI in ESX 3.5 and now vSphere is actually quite limited and usually assistance was only a google away.

I would say that CLI is getting into the realms of technical expert in relation to VMware. The job was not looking for that specifically, although the more knowledge I have the better I will look!

Regarding my situation, its a presentation and then approximately 1 hour interview. It doesn't mention tests or anything else, although I am fully expecting some questions relating to my knowledge of VMware.

Cheers.
 
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