VMware Lab 7

Lab 7: Adding Storage

In lab 7, storage will be added to one of the ESXi5 hosts using iSCSI over an Ethernet network.

Adding a port on the virtual switch for storage traffic in the ESXi501 server:

The task outlined in the VMware lab book is not the best solution. When adding the new port group it does not say to specify another NIC. The instructions do work but it’s not the proper solution. There needs to be a separate NIC for the IP storage. As using the same route for storage as the normal traffic will slow things down.

The solution from the book has all traffic going through one NIC.  It also means the iSCSI adapter needs to go on different NIC.

Frigged if I know how it works, since it’s all virtual, would someone like to clarify?

Next step, adding the iSCSI storage adapter to the ESXi5 server:

It shows 0 targets, devices and paths, yet the data store still ‘appears’. Beats me…

Refreshing helps…

ISCSI properties:

The ESXi5 server did pick up the storage server automatically though.

Lastly, adding an NFS data store to the first ESXi5 host:

A 20 GB LUN was created on the storage server just for this task. There won’t be many virtual machines hosted on the ESXi5 servers and with thin provisioning 20 GB will be enough.

Here’s a view of accessing the storage. But strangely enough it appears to have added the volume only? I blame the VMware lab book…

The iSCSI target never appeared, but the NFS did…

After some fiddling with the storage server and loads of refreshes, everything decided to show properly.

VMware Lab 2

Lab 2: Installing ESXi5 hosts.

This lab was very simple, all that needed to be done was setup a VM with the ESXi5 install ISO and boot it up to install the software. After it had been installed a few items needed configuring, which were DNS and IP. Finally it needed an NTP client running to ensure its time was synced with all other machines on the network.

After creating a blank machine it needs the correct configuration to function as intended.

Ready to install the software, correct adapter configuration is important as was noticed later on in another lab.

Slowly installing ESXi5 host number 1:

Configuring the network adapters to ensure the ESXi5 host can talk to the rest of the network:

Logged in with vSphere and viewing hardware information of the first ESXi5 server:

Next, configuring the ESXi501 DNS information for name resolution. This was done directly through the ESXi5 host first, but the lab instructed that it be done through vSphere. It seems unintuitive to do it through the GUI because when starting the host for the first time you configure its networking so you can access it… and this normally includes DNS.

Lastly the NTP client was setup on the ESXi5 host to ensure the machines are time synced up.

The NTP client was enabled and an appropriate server was chosen. At first it did not want to sync up, so I had to change the time of the other machines on the network to the same time server with the w32tm command (Basically added the time server to them too). Changing the vSphere client machine time was not even mentioned in the VMware book, well done VMware.

Ready to roll, the same configuration was applied to the second ESXi5 host as well, which will be used later for vMotion.

NETAPP part 2

In this week the storage server (Roly-DATAONTAP) received lots more configuration.

Previously we configured the storage server via its console. Now we will be using the NETAPP System Manager as well. This is simply a web GUI to access configuration items visually. Putty was also used to access the CLI remotely. Through this web GUI and the command line the basics of controlling the storage system were explored (such as commands available, help options, privilege levels, syntax etc) as well as setting up more advanced storage features. Some of the main items covered included configuring:

• volumes
• aggregates
• qtrees
• NFS
• CIFS shares
• LUNs

The above items had their related commands exercised with the CLI and web UI.

A new machine has also been added to the pod, Roly-DSL or Damn Small Linux. This is a very small Linux OS (50MB!). It was used for checking to see if the shares were working on the storage server for Linux clients.

Next week will introduce two more machines (Esxi hosts) to complete the pod setup stage

Screen shots coming soon…

Pod Set up and NETAPP part 1

In this blog I will post updates on progress towards completing the NET300 lab work.

In class during the mornings we have been doing theory work, specifically covering ITIL foundation and some VMware stuff. Some of the material we have been presented with I have covered last year or already know from previous experience.

All practical work in NET300 will be done with virtualization. Each student in NET300 gets their own “pod” in which they can create their virtual machines. And inside this pod will be another layer of virtualization.

So far I currently have in my pod a domain controller, dns, vcenter server and a NETAPP Data ONTAP storage server:

Roly-vDC (Domain controller and DNS)
Setting up the Domain controller was fairly straightforward, typical install, and I have done this many times before.

Roly-vVCS (V centre server)
Something newish to me, this will be the server for vcenter. This is used to control the virtual virtual machines inside my pod, which have not been created yet.

Roly-DATAONTAP (data ontap simulator)
This fancy wing ding of a machine holds the simulator for Data ONTAP storage, I’ve never touched this before and so it is a new experience for me. This machine has seen the most configurations. It has been reconfigured to now have 4 shelves of 14 x 4 GB.

Week of end 30th July – unsure of date. The week days before the date of this post. End of transmission.