28 Jan 2014
By Yendis

vNUMA disabled if CPU HotAdd enabled

VMware, ,
If virtual NUMA is configured with vCpu hotplug settings, the virtual machine will be started without virtual NUMA and instead it will use Uniform Memory Access with interleaved memory access. The virtual machine log displays the message: vmware.log> vmx| W110: NUMA and VCPU hot add are incompatible. Forcing UMA There is no current solution. If you do not plan to use vCpu hotplug, do not enable it.  Add the maximum vCpu's that might be needed by the workload. Source:VMware KB
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20 Jan 2014
By Yendis

XenDesktop Error: The hosting infrastructure could not be reached at the specified address

Citrix, VMware, , ,
When trying to create a XenDesktop group that is using ESX 4/5 as the hosting infrastructure, or you've had to reinstall VMware vCentre you may receive the following error message: "The hosting infrastructure could not be reached at the specified address." or there is no virtual desktop activity i.e. power on/off as virtual desktops are being used when viewed in vCentre recent activity The reason for this is because VMWare, vSphere, and the ESX host are configured to redirect http traffic to https by default.  Because the default certificate on ESX does not match the name of the server, it…
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19 Jan 2014
By Yendis

Microsoft Recommends NOT to Disable IPv6

Microsoft, , ,
You may always here from people in the industry that IPv6 "breaks things/stops things working" and that the recommendation is to disable it. If you where to speak to Microsoft or attend their seminars, you will always hear them say DON'T disable IPv6.  So who is correct!! The link below gives you an insight into IPv6. I've extracted  an example  Q and A from the list. IPv6 for Microsoft Windows http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/cc987595.aspx Q. What are Microsoft’s recommendations about disabling IPv6? A. It is unfortunate that some organizations disable IPv6 on their computers running Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008, where it…
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16 Jan 2014
By Yendis

Windows Server 2008 R2: KMS Error 0xC004F050 Invalid product key

Microsoft, ,
Whilst installing a server 2012 R2 KMS key on a Server 2008 R2 KMS host I ran into the following issue: Error: 0xC004F050 The Software Licensing Service reported that the product key is invalid. Even though I installed the KMS hotfix kb2757817 for Server 2012 support this was not enough to support Windows 2012 R2.  To be able to activate both Windows 2012 and Windows 2012 R2 you will also need to install KMS hotfix kb2885698. Server 2012 KMS - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2757817 Server 2012 R2 KMS - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2885698 Providing you install the correct hotfix you should be fine   
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10 Jan 2014
By Yendis

Dell vCentre OpenManage Integration Plugin

Tools, , ,
I've been using a really smart VMware vCentre plugin called "OpenManage Intergration" which is produced and sold by Dell.  Basically this plugin is used to patch firmware items on the server like BIOS, Lifecycle controller, NICs, iDrac and PERC card.  The only issue I have come across at the moment is sometimes a job will fail stating that it is already scheduled. [Firmware Update] File: R815_BIOS_F8FCX_WN32_3.0.5.EXE - Status: Failed - Message: iDRAC - A job for this update already exists in the queue and prevents the new job from being scheduled. [Firmware Update] File: R815_BIOS_F8FCX_WN32_3.0.5.EXE, Status: Failed, iDRAC: 10.170.210.107, Host xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx,…
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03 Jan 2014
By Yendis

Resetting a Dell iDRAC or DRAC card

Tools, ,
Sometimes the DRAC cards in Dell servers just seem to not respond or act up. If you still have CLI access to it, you can reset it a two different ways. If you are local to the machine, and it has OpenManage installed (OMSA), use this command to perform a soft-reset: c:racadm racreset soft It will acknowledge that it has completed and you have to wait a few minutes. If you are remote you need to have the DRAC tools installed, and credentials to use the command: racadm -r <ip address> -u <username> -p <password> racreset soft This will perform a…
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01 Jan 2014
By Yendis

MCSE 2012 Certification

Microsoft,
Today I am pleased to announce that today I passed my last exam to achieve "Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert:Server Infrastructure", this was based on the Windows 2012 platform and as I was fortunate enough to hold the current "MCITP" accreditation so I only had to pass the following three exams: -  
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15 Dec 2013
By Yendis

London VMUG Meeting – 24th Jan 2013

VMware
The London VMUG Steering Committee is delighted to invite you to our first VMUG meeting of 2013. This is a great opportunity to come together with your fellow VMware users to discuss virtualization trends, best practices, and the latest technology! Be sure to visit our new London VMUG Workspace! Connect with your fellow VMUG members in te forum, ask and answer questions about VMware, and get involved in your VMUG community. Meeting Highlights  Nutanix Presentation - Alan Campbell and Rob Tribe, Nutanix Your Journey to the Post-PC Era - Brian Gammage, VMware EUC Panel with VDI Gurus - Brian Gammage, VMware…
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09 Dec 2013
By Yendis

VMware ESXi Snapshot Placement

VMware,
Recently I came across an issue after recently upgrading an environment from ESXi 4.1 to ESXi 5.1 update 1 when I started to get issues with snapshots filling up LUNS.  After analysing what was going on I noticed that when a snapshot was initialized, the snapshot file placement was different and was causing space issues. On ESX 4.x environment the delta disks were stored in the directory specified by the workingDir parameter. This was typically the same directory as the configuration files for the virtual machine On ESXi 5.x environment to facilitate the improvements to Storage vMotion and the new Storage DRS feature, a change to the snapshot process…
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