Virtuall BLOG for hbr

Installing the linux 64-bit Citrix receiver v12

hbr@pqr.nl — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 23:00:00 +0100

Nothing should be easier than downloading a binary package from the internet, install it and run the executable. But in case of Citrix Receivers on Linux, this has always been somewhat of an issue. With the previous versions there was always some issues with Motif or certificates that were missing. With version 12 of the Receiver for Linux this is no different. With all the excuses Citrix has, they still manage to deliver almost complete installers that only need “a little bit of manual [...]

Migrating from VBA to VSTO

hbr@pqr.nl — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:00:00 +0100

It was long overdue but we finally made the move away from Visual Basic for Applications (Microsoft Office scripting). We implemented Sharepoint 2010 and were still using the old fashioned VBA code that originated from Office 2003. So we got Visual Studio out and started translating the VBA code into Visual Basic dotnet.

After the code was translated and connections to CRM were setup, we bound the new standard document to the sharepoint libraries. Now if we create a new document from [...]

Scheduled monitoring of ESXi hosts

hbr@pqr.nl — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100

In my post on sizing up the storage for block size usage, I wrote a script to get the data into a manageable form. This script runs fine from the command line but you probably want to have some sort of trend to analyze.

In that case, you want to go and schedule running the script. Now the ESX host has a scheduler called ‘cron’. In full versions you would simply add a script to /etc/cron.hourly and it would pick it up on the next run. In ESXi this is slightly different. To [...]

It's SAMPLE time with vscsiStats

hbr@pqr.nl — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:00:00 +0100

vscsiStats is a new VMware tool that helps give insight in disk IOs and latency and stuff like that. It’s a very useful tool but it dumps data in histograms. Using these in Excel is quite a pain because Excel knows histograms (with add-ins) but only one at a time. If you want a graph a whole LUN or other lower level part of the storage over time, you need to reformat the data. And luckily, ESX, like most Linux versions nowadays, comes with a python interpreter. Now I know a lot of diffe [...]

Archiving email attachments

hbr@pqr.nl — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:00:00 +0100

I had a discussion last week with a colleague about archiving messages in outlook. I have a 7GB mailbox on the server because I never delete mail. That may seem overdone but it has served me well a couple of times in discussions we had. Besides, I see absolutely no point in archiving mail away from the mail server to another store on some fileserver that eventually lands on the same central storage.

But a lot of the older mail contains attachments that are outdated and no longer n [...]

Import a VM into Lab Manager using Orchestrator (part 2)

hbr@pqr.nl — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:00:00 +0100

This is part 2 of a quick guide to importing a VM into Lab Manager using Orchestrator. In case you missed it, part 1 is available on http://virtuall.eu/blog/import-a-vm-in-lab-manager-using-orchestrator.

Lab Manager import preparation

In the previous blog we selected a VM and exported it to a fileshare. Unfortunately, for Lab Manager to understand this VM export, we need to change it a little. First, we need 2 xml files; a configuration.xml with this content:

<configu [...]

The VDI armageddon (about Storage impact of VDI)

hbr@pqr.nl — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 23:00:00 +0100

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI, is hot. It’s cool, secure, centrally managed, flexible - it’s an IT manager’s dream.

VDI comes in two flavours; Service Hosted VDI (Centralized, single-user remote vDesktop solution) and Client-Side VDI (local, single-user vDesktop solution).

The advantages of a VDI infrastructure are that virtual desktops are hardware independent and can be accessed from any common OS. It is also much easier to deplo [...]

Import a VM in Lab Manager using Orchestrator

hbr@pqr.nl — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:00:00 +0100

There are a lot of things you can automate in a virtual infrastructure. One of the tools that can help automate the more complex workflows is Orchestrator. It’s free when you have a vCenter and it’s very powerful.

Another great tool is Lab Manager. It’s designed for Test and Dev environments but it can also help to improve uptime of your datacenter by regulating changes in your production environment.

This is a Proof of Concept combining the two tools as they overlap o [...]

Script bits (update 4)

hbr@pqr.nl — Mon, 31 May 2010 23:00:00 +0100

This post is a quick gathering of a few small scripts I wrote with my IT-life's motto: "Never do anything twice"

None of them are very special but each of them is a result of a short moment of frustration and a few minutes of gvim typing (yes, I use 'vi' on windows too).

so far this article contains:

Add wallpapers from a lot of subdirs to a Windows 7 Theme Change everybody's manager in Active Directory Execute one command on all you [...]

A blog post with Windows Live Writer to Joomla/myBlog

hbr@pqr.nl — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:00:00 +0100

On the server side, take the next steps to install the MetaWebLog XMLRPC plugin in Joomla:

go to http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/metaweblogapi/frs/ and download the file to your local system go to http://yoursite/administrator and go to ‘Extensions’ and ‘Install/Uninstall’ browse and upload the metaweblog zipfile next, go to Site, Global Configuration, System, System Settings and set Enable Web Services to Y [...]

Scheduled View VM refresh

hbr@pqr.nl — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:00:00 +0100

If you use non persistent desktops with VMware View, there are two options to reset the machine to its default state. One is immediately after a user logs off, the other is manually by a View Administrator. Currently, there is no way to schedule a VM reset at, say, 2PM.

A VM reset generates a lot of IOPS. So doing this in a production environment that's strained for IOPS is a performance risk (read http://virtuall.eu/download-document/vdi-storage-deep-impact!). But having adm [...]

Creating a VDI template

hbr@pqr.nl — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0100

A basic Windows XP machine can do a lot of things. Apart from facilitating an environment for a user's applications, it can do things like self maintenance, updates, hardware changes, etc. This is nice in a physical environment with lots of different pieces of hardware but in a virtual instance things hardly change, the environment is pretty much set and all tricks to speed things up usually have an adverse effect on the infrastructure. All these virtual instances nee [...]

VMware new product releases

hbr@pqr.nl — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100

VMware announced a couple of new products today: SRM 4 and WS 7.

VMware Site Recovery Manager 4

Most important features are

vSphere support
NFS support
Shared recovery site support
FT support

They [...]

ESX Deployment Appliance (EDA) Quick startup and troubleshooting guide

hbr@pqr.nl — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100

The current version is 0.95. Download the main appliance from Download v0.95. Don't forget to use the alternate OVF file at the same download location if you need to import the VM into previous Virtual Infrastructure versions. This guide is written for previous versions but except for some first time wizards, it still applies to the newest release.

If you have anything to say about this appliance, don't hesitate and go to the VMTN forum for this appliance.

To search through e [...]

vCenter Orchestrator and LabManager 4

hbr@pqr.nl — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100

With vCenter 4.0 comes vCenter Orchestrator. This workflow management software was originally developed by Dunes was the base for Lab Manager and Stage Manager.

Orchestrator is installed by default when vCenter server is installed but to use it, you have to enable it. It doesn't require any additional licenses.

To enable Orchestrator, go to services.msc and set the "VMware vCenter Orchestrator Configuration" service to autostart and start the service.

[...]

User pictures from the Active Directory

hbr@pqr.nl — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Not many people are aware that the Microsoft Active Directory has properties for pictures. This means that it's possible to add mugshots from people to your AD.

I created a small application that lets you edit these pictures. That means you don't need a seperate fileserver directory or database to store this kind of information. I also added birthday and first working day to the schema of the AD (somehow date properties aren't available in AD??). This makes this a coo [...]

Windows 7 Issues

hbr@pqr.nl — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100

I've been working with Windows 7 since the first beta was released and since that first beta, it's been working much better than Vista ever did on my laptop.

But there are some issues. This list describes what I encountered and how it can be solved. I run 64bit because I have 4GB ram.

VMware vSphere Client won't run properly.

get the system.dll from dotNet 2.0 and follow instructions here.

Connecting to a WebDAV share (like Sharepoint) [...]

Information collection

hbr@pqr.nl — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100

There is so much information that comes by that I sometimes hear of things, recognize that I heard something about that before, but totally forgot where.

This list is an attempt to keep up with all that information by linking keywords and links for quick reference and easy searching.

Check this out:

Atlantis Computing Fast and dynamic storage objectsLiquidware Labs VDI [...]

vSphere Fault Tolerance

hbr@pqr.nl — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100

we did some tests at a customer last week with FT. First ofcourse, it works like a charm. very impressive technology.

one of the things we wanted to know is the bandwidth needed to keep the CPUs in sync.

first we popped up 'calc' and did a 123456789! CPU went up to 100%, bandwidth needed: only 15kB/s.. wow..

next we did a local disk to local disk copy. not very cpu intensive but the FT bandwith went up to 25kB/s. still very low.

[...]

The story of the vSphere client that wanted to run on Windows 7

hbr@pqr.nl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100

The vSphere client expects certain things to be available on the machine it runs on. On all released Windows versions, this is not an issue. But on Windows 7, something is missing that makes the client install correctly, but when it connects to an ESX host, fails with an obscure XML error message.

To get the vSphere to run correctly, you need a SYSTEM.DLL from the dotNet 2.0 stack and have the vSphere client use that DLL instead of the native one. < [...]