VMworld 2013

It's coming!  You can't stop it!  The excitement is building for sure! That's right, this year VMworld is going to be big.

This year is the 10th for this awesome conference that brings users and vendors, from far and near, together in one place.  I'm very excited for this year (being my 4th time to go) because I've actually signed up to be a blogger during the conference.  I'm not even sure what all this entails.  Will I be cornered into a little room where I have to sit and type out some posts before I'm allowed out?  (that would be funny, but not cool) Will I be treated like royalty and set upon the stage of the event?  (highly doubtful)

One of the biggest issue for me is "What sessions do I want to see?" Since there are so many sessions along with I'm sure a ton of labs and not to mention the vendor area and such.  One of the coolest places I enjoyed last year was the hangout space.  There you could unwind and still feel like you were at the conference instead of headed back to the hotel and wasting time walking to and fro.

I'm sure I'll post more as the time draws near, but for now, this will have to be good enough.

In just 25 days from today, the magic starts and maybe a new path for me.

VMUG User Conference 7-11-13

With great anticipation I quickly volunteered for this all day event.  With the lineup of speakers and sessions along with some pretty top of the line vendors and of course, free food, I knew this was one not to be missed.  Great turnout today from our community!  Nothing like handing out SWAG to get the opportunity to meet people.  I had plenty of opportunity to see some familiar faces and remember some names.

We started off with a great intro by the VMUG leaders along with Doug Bear (@dobear) talking about the Hands on Labs (@VMwareHOL ).  Next was Eric Siebert's (@ericsiebert) Keynote - The Top 10 Things you Must Know About Storage for vSphere.  The rest of the day was spent with multiple breakout sessions and vendor mingling.  

Lunch was from 12:15-12:45 (which is late for an early riser like me, but that's OK, it was great food!) Followed up by the afternoon Keynote speaker Josh Gwyther  "VMware's Future, Today". After his keynote there were even more sessions with the closing and giveaways at the end.  Then some even went to the Thirsty Lion for some vBeers and food with @Veeam @TintriInc.  If you missed out, that's OK, there's always next year, but don't miss that one!  For more information headed to http://vmug.com/phoenix , email phoenix@vmug.com or @vmugphoenix #phxvmug.  Our local VMUG chapter has over 1500 state-wide registered members, you could be the next to take us to 1600!  Don't miss out!

Migration from one VC to another using VEEAM

VEEAM, LET'S DO IT!!

The purpose of this entire experiment was to work through the logistics of moving a VM from a 5.0 vSphere to a 5.1 vSphere without shared storage.  Or from one datacenter to another. 

I wanted to use VEEAM fastscp for the transfer as it installs quite quickly and the interface is easy to understand.   Both vCenters are joined to the same domain.

Below is the physical ESXi box.

Below is one of the nested ESXi VMs on my workstation.

As you can see, the interface would be familiar to vCenter users or even those familiar with windows explorer.

Once complete, click new schedule

Click add

Select source folder.

Select destination folder

Continue with the job creation

You'd think it would be as simple as clicking on Finish below, but that was not the case

When I tried both the scheduler and simply copying from one folder to another I received this error:

Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID [5F1555F0-0DBB-47F6-B10B-0AB0E1C1D8CE} failed due to the following error: 800700c1

I then found this fix.

Due the way the COM module are coded, thankfully there is any easy fix:

1) Download the .NET 3.5 SP1 SDK Here

2) Do a custom install and select only the Developer Tools

3) Run the following commands in an elevated prompt:

CD C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Bin\x64

CorFlags.exe "c:\Program Files (x86)\Veeam\Veeam Backup and FastSCP\VeeamShell.exe" /32BIT+

http://www.techspew.net/2011/06/27/veeam-fastscp-and-x64-windows/

After running that command, the transfer started.

When the copy completed, I browsed the LUN, found the VM and added it to inventory.

Upgraded VMTools, assigned an IP through DHCP, logged on and found a document that I created quite some time ago.  (This was originally sitting on the iSCSI appliance)

Remember, this just copies the VM, so it's still sitting back in its original storage area and the original can be deleted from the source once you have verified that the VM is stable.


Update - I did come across an issue where the datastore was not found or accessible.  I was able to connect to the hosts directly after removing the lockdown mode and opening up port 443.  (Both security risks in some environments.)