Virtualization Tips » Tools

Why does it take HP so long to integrate their products

Brian — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:16:44 +0000

I was talking with a fellow VMware nerd today about cloud and infrastructure gear. And I can’t help but wonder why it takes HP so long to execute on integrating their products, mostly around the support tools. Look HP owns a complete stack now, network, compute, storage and software. Along with their suites of tools that you need to use to manage all these devices independently. To me this is their biggest failure and does not appear to be getting fixed anytime soon.

This is a big bonus of working Cisco UCS because there is just one place that I need to go to configure, manage, patch a blade environment. With HP I might have to use the Onboard Administrators, Virtual Connect manager and HP SIM. This seems like such a no brainer that HP could have fixed years ago, because the HP Blade systems have been around for years.

So if HP wants to rule the market in the Cloud era they need to reduce their tools into less management points. I should be able to do everything in one console for compute and if they could roll in storage to this also would be a huge win. And if they are properly motivated they can. Now a unified tool for automation of hardware that could reach into VMware with API’s would be the next big win. I know they are working on some of this but last that I saw it still sounded like there would be too many moving pieces.

So HP I challenge you to solve this issue with your massive amount of Talent, code and other resources. You need to become innovate again and make products that people want to own and desire for other reasons than you have a large install base and are cheaper.

If you want some examples you can read my post about the comparison of what tools it takes to manage HP vs Cisco blades chassis here.

About Brian

Brian is a Technical Architect for a VMware partner and owner of this website. He is active in the VMware community and is helps lead the Chicago VMUG group. This blog Virtualize Tips was started to document and remember things that I come across while working with tech.

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War declared on VM Zombie Nation!

mike — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 23:15:17 +0000

I’ll teach you VM Zombies what for! Just wait for me to assemble the VMnomican (Unholy book of the Virtual)! Soon you will know the weapons we use to thwart you (and it’s not just virgins!)

As you can see from the image below our first line protector is ready to use the full power of our Monitoring and Chargeback tools to take down the Zombies. She is already waiting in the Datacenter to blast the offenders.

Also, big thanks for posting my email retort!

http://www.zombievm.org/contact.html

About Mike Mills

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The need to clean up a cloned Virtual Machine

Brian — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:05:40 +0000

In working with a client recently I noticed that they are cloning virtual machines and it’s causing issues with their tool set. This really came to light when working with their XenApp servers. The Citrix team was building servers loaded with apps to create a template that could be cloned to create the other servers in a application pool. The issue with this is that the team was using existing servers already in production that already had the tools installed on them. The problem came to light with issues from the tools used to protect and monitor the virtual machines. This would not be an issue with standard OS templates already created that would have the tools added after the cloning process.

When cloning the virtual machine there are still a lot of registry entries left over with the old server name for tools like Opsware, McAfee and an asset mgmt application. These old registry entries would cause the new VM to knock the old VM out of the tools console and cause issues with reporting and management of the source server. For example Opsware would start talking to the newly cloned server thinking it was the source server and this would leave the source machine not in the patching scheduled.

To clean this up it was necessary to uninstall these tools from the new virtual machine then go back through the registry and clean up any entries that referenced the old server name. Then reboot the server and reinstall the tools. This will clean up the issues and allow everything to work without conflicting with the source server.

So for future requests of this type they have agreed to either use a base OS build and load applications on by hand or create their Citrix template with applications and clone prior to installing any monitoring applications. This will eliminate the issues that they had been experiencing.

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RV Tools 2.9 has been released

Brian — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:17:45 +0000

I have written about RV Tools in the past and what a great free tool Rob has created. He has recently updates to version 2.9 with some new features. I recommend that you have a look and I know it’s a staple in my toolkit. Here are some of the updates in this new version. You can download the tool from Rob’s site here.

On vHost tab new fields: Vendor and model.
On vHost tab new fields: Bios version and Bios release date.
On vInfo tab new field: VM overall size in bytes (visible when using VI API 4.0)
On vSnapshot tab new fields: Snapshot filename and size in bytes (visible when using VI API 4.0)
New vNic tab. The vNic tab displays for each physival nic on the host the following fields: Host, datacenter, cluster name, network device, driver, speed, duplex setting, mac address, PCI and wakeon switch.
Layout change on vHost, vSwitch and vPort tabpages. They now all start with host name, datacenter and cluster name.
The commandline function ExportAll extended with an extra optional parameter. It’s now possible to specify the directory where the export files are written.

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HP Insight Control integration with VMware vCenter server announced

Brian — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:32:01 +0000

Today at the HP Storage Day blogger event HP announced the integration of HP Insight Control with VMware vCenter. This raises the bar with whats been available to this point via CIM agents provided by hardware manufacturers. I have listed some of the main bullet points from HP below. My biggest question will be can I manage the RAID adapters inside the hosts with this new plugin?

The HP Insight Control extension for VMware vCenter Server delivers powerful HP hardware management capabilities to virtualization administrators, enabling comprehensive monitoring, remote control and power optimization directly from the vCenter console. In addition, Insight Control delivers robust deployment capabilities and is an integration point for the broader portfolio of infrastructure management, service automation and IT operations solutions available from HP. Key capabilities integrated into the vCenter console include:

Combined physical and virtual view: From a single pane of glass, monitor status and performance of virtual machines and the underlying host systems that support them.
Integrated troubleshooting: Receive prefailure and failure alerts on HP server components and invoke HP management tools, such as Systems Insight Manager and Onboard Administrator, in-context, directly from the vCenter console
Powerful Remote Control: Remotely manage and troubleshoot HP ProLiant and BladeSystem servers using HP Integrated Lights Out Advanced capabilities directly from the vCenter console.
Proactive power management: Get the most out of your existing power envelope by comprehending and proactively managing power for hosts and pools of virtual machines across hosts

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