ESXi and Flow Control

Blog post is here.

ethtool –show-pause vmnic2

VMware’s Software FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) Adapter

Blog post is here.

HP H222 SAS Controller has AQLEN=600
Best is just to go with HP P420i embedded with AQLEN=1020
***Enable HBA mode/passthrough on P420i using HPSSACLI and following ESXi commands
-Make sure disks are wipe clean and no RAID exists
-Make sure FW is latest v5.42
-Make sure ESXi device driver is installed v5.5.0-44vmw.550.0.0.1331820 http://www.vibsdepot/hpq/feb2014-550/esxi-550-devicedrivers/hpsa-5.5.0-1487947.zip

-Put host in MM, from ilo of ESXi in support mode (Alt+F1) execute the following

To View controller config using HPSSACLI with ESXCLI
~ # esxcli hpssacli cmd -q “controller slot=0 show config detail”
To enable HBA mode on P420i using HPSSACLI
~ # esxcli hpssacli cmd -q “controller slot=0 modify hbamode=on forced”

Reboot the host & perform a scan and walah … disks will show up in vSphere web client on each host>devices>before you enable vSAN

Galera Cluster for MySQL vs MySQL (NDB) Cluster: A High Level Comparison - Webinar Replay & Slides

http://www.severalnines.com/blog/galera-cluster-mysql-vs-mysql-ndb-cluster-high-level-comparison-webinar-replay-slides

MXL and Vmware dvS PVLAN

From: Jayson_Block [mailto:bounce-Jayson_Block@kmp.dell.com]
Sent: venerdì 12 dicembre 2014 21:26
To: Cloud_Virtualization@kmp.dell.com
Subject: RE: MXL and Vmware dvS PVLAN

Dell Customer Communication

The feature you are actually looking for, to support VMware and PVLAN together, is PVLAN trunking. I get into why here in just a second.

FTOS does indeed support this feature in the majority of the 10/40 lineup, which is actually a pretty significant thing as many other vendors (like Brocade Ethernet for example) do not support or are just now introducing support for PVLAN trunking today. Almost all vendors now support an implementation of PVLAN, that’s not at issue; VMware specifically requires PVLAN trunking and those trunks must support the ability to tag both normal VLAN IDs as well as PVLAN IDs.

Here is a link to the MXL FTOS 9.6.0.0 CLI reference guide – beware, it’s pretty big.

http://www.force10networks.com/CSPortal20/KnowledgeBase/DOCUMENTATION/CLIConfig/FTOS/MXL_9.6.0.0_CLI_Sept_23_2014.pdf

Details start at page 41.

We’re all used to presenting trunks to ESX hosts and these trunk switchports are configured to support multiple VLAN IDs which have been set to ‘tagged’ on those particular ports or port-channels. Private VLAN for VMware is handled the same way. You can configure those same trunks to support private-VLAN trunking and then tag both the primary PVLAN and the secondary (isolated, community, etc) PVLAN IDs onto those trunks.

In the dvS top-level  when you configure Private VLAN it will ask for both the primary VLAN ID as well as the attached secondary IDs. Once configured at the top-level you can then create port groups for the primary (if desired) and secondary PVLAN IDs as necessary.

At the physical switch level you create VLAN IDs as normal but then go into each VLAN interface you want to be a PVLAN and start defining their modes.

Below is purely an example:

All 32 of the internal switchports.

- int range tengigabitethernet 0/0-31

- description ESXi-host-trunk-ports

- switchport

- portmode hybrid

- mtu 12000

- flowcontrol rx on tx off

- switchport mode private-vlan trunk

- int vlan 10

- description Just-a-regular-vlan

- mtu 12000

- tagged TenGigabitEthernet 0/0-31

- int vlan 450

- description PVLAN-primary

- mtu 12000

- private-vlan mode primary

- private-vlan mapping secondary-vlan 451

- tagged TenGigabitEthernet 0/0-31

- int vlan 451

- description PVLAN-secondary-isolated

- mtu 12000

- private-vlan mode isolated

- tagged TenGigabitEthernet 0/0-31

Note that vlan 10 above is still tagged on 0/0-15 in addition to the PVLAN primary and secondary VLANs, though the addition of the line ‘switchport mode private-vlan trunk’ is what enables this feature; the ability to tag PVLAN IDs on a trunk.

Hope this helps!

--

Jayson Block

Senior Technical Design Architect

Dell | Datacenter, Cloud and Converged Infrastructure – C&SI

+1 443-876-3366 cell – Maryland – USA

From: Matteo_Mazzari [mailto:bounce-Matteo_Mazzari@kmp.dell.com]
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 1:27 PM
To: Cloud_Virtualization@kmp.dell.com
Subject: MXL and Vmware dvS PVLAN

Hi all,

Are there any guideline to configure FTOS and ESXi to use PVLAN? Experience? Suggestion?

Thanks a lot

Kind regards

Matteo Mazzari

Solution Architect

Dell | Global Storage Services

mobile +39 340 9312022

IOA and 40Gb Add-In Module Default Behavior

4*10G mode is the default.

You change the uplink speed by changing the opmode with an argument:

stack-unit 0 iom-mode standalone 40G

(Requires reload)

show system stack-unit unit-number iom-uplink-speed

azure pack vs vcac

Hi Scott,

I will make some comments based on my personal experience. We have implemented both solutions for different customers in Australia, both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Windows Azure Pack

The good

-          Portal is great, same as Azure

-          Pretty simple to set up, basic implementation requires just Windows and Virtual Machine Manager.

-          Provides most of the private cloud functions customers are looking for

-          Great story for Azure public cloud integration, machine migration is seamless

-          With Hyper-V recovery manager you can use Hyper-V replicas directly to Azure and to secondary data centre

-          WAP includes Azure Service Bus

-          The Scale Out File Server architecture on the MS platform is pretty solid, scalability is not bad

-          Licensing is simple, per processor for Windows and all System Centre products.

The not so good

-          No multi tenancy

-          No ability to customise the portal

-          The chargeback is very basic, you need to implement Service Manager for detailed reports (and SM is still pretty terrible)

-          Orchestration is fairly basic, you need SCO for custom orchestration.

-          Needs SCOM for monitoring and alerting, third party ticketing integration is complex.

-          Not possible with the MS virtual networking stack to do automated provisioning of multi tier applications, virtual load balancers and VLAN provisioning.

-          Locked in to MS cloud, poor integration with other cloud vendors.

-          If customer is existing VMware customer then migration of virtual machines can require significant effort. P2V migration functionality is no longer available in VMM 2012 R2, VMware integration is limited.

vRealize Automation (AKA vCAC)

The good

-          True multi tenancy

-          SDN integration is excellent, with NSX vCAC is able to do very complex provisioning and management of network services

-          Integrates with vCentre Orchestrator, with a couple of hundred workflows available out of the box

-          Good chargeback functionality out of the box

-          Portal is somewhat customisable.

-          VMware have announced full support for OpenStack, and have an OpenStack distribution in beta

-          VMware have announced support for Docker, Jenkins and Kubernetes, so is a good platform for open source cloud application development

The not so good

-          Complex to set up

-          vCloud Air public cloud is still fairly limited availability, and currently  integration is  rudimentary.

-          VSAN v1 is fairly basic at the moment, will need to wait for vSphere v6 for significant improvements

-          Needs vCOps for monitoring and alerting

-          Licensing is complex and pricing of the solution depends on the size and complexity of the implementation

-          DR options are more complex than MS, SRM is better for Enterprise DR but is not cloud ready.

Hope this helps.

Dean Gardiner

Practice Lead – Data Centre and Cloud

Australia and New Zealand

Dell | Global Infrastructure Consulting Services

mobile +61 409315591

email Dean_Gardiner@dell.com