Varrow Blogs

Just a quick note about a quiet change to how ESX 4.1 handles SSH access:  In previous versions of ESX, you would open the VI client or vSphere client, connect directly to the host and create a user with “allow shell access” checked.  With 4.1, you now also need to go to the Permissions tab and [...]

A lot of people installed vSphere 4 Update 2 when it released, only to find that desktop connections using PCoIP (a multimedia-optimized remote desktop option for VMware View)  would no longer work.  The tricky part is that the problem only occurs once VMware Tools is upgraded in the guest, and since not everyone does that immediately [...]

Beware using IP DHCP PING (Cisco) or DHCP Conflict Detection (Windows) when deploying templates in VMware vCenter. If the DHCP server takes too long to answer a DHCP request, Guest Customization will time out while attempting to join a Windows VM to a domain (it makes two attempts). This will be recorded in the logs [...]

I want to take a few minutes to discuss how to choose between vSphere ESXi and vSphere today, in the present.

As I’m flying back to North Carolina from my one whole day at EMC World I was thinking a bit about the announcements that EMC has made this week.  VPLEX is a very interesting product and I was going over possible use cases in my head. If money was no object, or if you needed [...]

I just wrapped up deploying the Cisco ACE module load balancer at a customer of ours. I normally wouldn’t post on something like this, but the shear void of information on the issues I ran into prompts me to do so. Hopefully some poor soul will stumble across this in aid of their deployment. The [...]

In one of my earlier blog posts, I touched on how the Nexus 1000v serves as the access switch in the Core, Distribution, Access Layer model of networking. Prior to the 1000v, the vSwitch on the ESX hosts served as the access switch, creating an additional access layer and removing visibility for the network engineers. [...]

Cisco today announced a new technology called Overlay Transport Virtualization (OTV).  Not a great name…not cool like vMotion or anything but it’s still pretty neat.  My background is heavily networking so I love the fact that the networking field is now working tightly with virtualization (and storage..but not today).  If you remember back when I [...]

It’s always fun to see someone, big or small, enter a new market and really shake things up.  I think we’re seeing Cisco do that with their Nexus switches and UCS (Unified Computing System) platform.  The Nexus line shouldn’t be a big surprise, that’s Cisco’s core market interest.  But combine it with UCS and they [...]

Lately I’ve been talking with a lot of people deploying the Nexus 1000v in to their environment.  The question always comes up about doing a complete migration to it and what needs to be done.  It’s pretty simple, but if you miss some things, like I did the first time, it won’t work and you’ll [...]

We’ve been working with the Nexus 5Ks a good bit lately and they are just cool, no two ways about it.  One really nice feature that the Nexus 5000 and 7000 support is vPC, or virtual port-channels.  Take note that support for vPC is new on the 5K and you’ll need at least version 4.1(3)N1(1) [...]

VMware has a pretty handy guide out there for those migrating to vSphere…but it’s also pretty useful even if you have already made the move.  It’s the vSphere Migration Prerequisites Checklist available here.  It’s useful because it gives you the requirements and limitations when upgrading to vSphere or implementing the cool new features like FT [...]

Microsoft surprised some people today with the announcement that they are contributing some drivers to the Linux kernel project.  There is a lot of mis-information and confusion running around..look no further than Slashdot!  Some things just never change….  Anyway, the purpose of Microsoft’s contribution is simple, better support for Hyper-V.  By adding these kernel extensions [...]

If you’ve read a lot of the Varrow blogs you’ll see information and talk about Cisco’s Nexus technology and products.  To be blunt, it can be confusing and a bit convoluted.  The hardware products, the Nexus 5000 and 7000, have been out for a little while now and we’re seeing more and more interest in [...]

We’re starting to see a lot of traction with the Cisco Nexus 1000v distributed software switch.  The downside is that it’s a little hard to explain without a good demonstration so while working in the lab this week I created a video that should give you a better idea of what the Nexus 1000v encompasses.  [...]