Enterprise Admins.org

As a VMware admin, I try to keep tabs on customer requests, especially when multiple issues are reported for similar problems. Recently I noticed two requests come through for virtual machine sound issues — within a day of each other. One customer was reporting that their application required a sound card to be installed and the other customer was reporting that their server was beeping and they wanted it to stop.

Issue #1: Sound card required
Description: The users application converted text to speech for use in an automated dialing application. The application would generate a WAV file, but an error would be generated as the the application attempted to play the file.
Resolution: Enabling sound for Remote Desktop Protocol in a Windows virtual machine http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004839

Issue #2: Stop the beeping
Description: The customers application would beep when moving from tab to tab if the required form fields were not complete. This beep was was the standard system beep and could be recreated by typing the following at a command prompt echo <CTRL>+<G>.
Resolution: System Beeps after Installing Hotfix Rollup Pack 5 for XenApp 5.0/4.5 on Windows Server 2003 http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX126856

At first I believed these issues to be hardware/ESXi related — I hadn’t experienced either problem before and both requests were received within 24 hours. Fortunately, however, neither issue was virtual or physical hardware related and were easily resolved within the guest operating systems.

I have ran into this issue several times and thought it would be worth sharing. The issue appears to be related Windows 2008 Server (the version without R2) and applies to both Standard and Enterprise editions.

When extending the disk, the partition appears to grow but the file system size does not change as expected. You’ll note in the screenshot below that the disk management screen (at the bottom) shows disk 1 – the D: drive – as being 40GB but the screenshot in the middle shows drive D: as only 30GB.

I found the following article that applies to Windows XP and 2003 server. The partition size is extended, but the file system remains the original size when you extend an NTFS volume http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832316

I didn’t install the mentioned hotfix as it does not apply to Windows 2008. However, the following diskpart commands resolved the issue:

select volume d
extend filesystem

After running the extend filesystem command the volume size is increased to 40GB without reboot or issue. I hope this article helps others who might run into this issue.

Today VMware released the View for Android – Tech Preview client application. It is available for download in the market:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.vmware.view.client.android&feature=search_result

Just like the View Client for iPad, this client requires View 4.6 and supports PCoIP. When I first heard about the announcement, I was disappointed as I heard it required Honeycomb (the 3.x platform) which does not perform well on my device.

I should mention that I’m using a Barnes & Noble Nook Color, and the Honeycomb version I experienced performance problems with was a dual book offering that I got from the following post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1045018. I am currently running phiremod 6.3, a CyanogenMod 7.0.3 based version of Gingerbread (2.3 platform). If you are interested in this configuration, check out this site which provides all the info you’ll need to know: http://phiremod.wordpress.com/nook-color/

Back to the View Android Tech Preview client story…the Android Market showed that Android version 2.2 and up were supported with this release, so I went ahead and installed the free app.

After opening the application, I was prompted for my View Connection server. The application connected and presented me with a login screen and after authenticating I was able to see my entitled desktops. I launched a Windows XP desktop and was surprised how well the application worked! The screen resolution adjusts quickly as I rotate the device, the on-screen touchpad works awesome and the touch screen works just like one would expect (you don’t get a lot of precision, but it gets you pretty close).

Maybe this free product is VMware’s peace offering for the recent vSphere5 license changes 🙂

Today VMware unveiled several major improvements in Cloud computing. This was a good webcast, and it appears a link is available here http://www.vmware.com/cloud-infrastructure/business-critical-applications.html to watch the re-run if you are interested.

CEO Paul Maritz and CTO Steve Herrod shared some very cool improvements and facts. Virtualization of Business Critical Applications is on the rise. Between January 2010 and April 2011, virtualized instances of SAP grew from 18% to 28%; MS SharePoint from 53% to 67%. Other critical apps like Exchange, SQL and Oracle all showed growth too. In order to allow for additional growth, the new release (vSphere 5) will support 32 virtual CPUs per VM (up from 8 in vSphere 4) and memory support will increase to 1,000GB per VM (up from 256GB in vSphere 4).

Then Rick Jackson, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) came on stage. I feel sorry for this guy, because he really stole the show — and nearly spoiled the huge announcement. He announced that the restrictions around cores per processor and physical memory limits per host were going to be removed – simplifying licensing. Part of the justification was improvements in hardware that weren’t conceiviable even a few years back. This is a change for the better, but shortly after things started to go bad. The next slide made reference to a new vRAM pool, which didn’t go into a lot of detail. Twitter and blogs have been a flurry for the last ~12 hours going into this issue. I really like this description/run down of the issue — along with real world implications: http://lonesysadmin.net/2011/07/12/the-five-stages-of-vmware-licensing-grief/

My concern is much more simple. The new vRAM pool model allows for 48GB of RAM to be allocated to virtual machines per socket license (assuming Enterprise Plus Edition). Lets suppose I have some awesome hardware and a business need to reach the new configurable maximum of 1,000GB of RAM on a single virtual machine. This would require that I have around 21 socket licenses to meet my single virtual machines memory demand. While 1,000GB of RAM is now technically possible, it may not be financially possible for many organizations.

I understand the approach — and it is really no different than past licensing models — those who use the higher end features pay more. I also understand the outrage — with the improvements in hardware in the last couple of years, it is now possible to achieve crazy consolidation ratios we couldn’t have conceived in the recent past. In my opinion, this license change may prevent some organizations from moving to the new platform.

I’m looking forward to hearing the VMTN Communities Roundtable Podcast tomorrow…I’m pretty sure a discussion on this topic will break out within the first few minutes.