3rd Party tools for Virtualized Environments

1. ToutVirtual's VirtualIQ Professional "...provides simple, easy-to-use actionable information about your dynamic virtualization environment. Use contextual drill-downs to get additional information on an as needed basis. VirtualIQ Pro uses automated methods to generate auto-correlated visibility into your dynamic virtual infrastructure..."

OpenFiler as an ESX iSCSI target

Pretty much decided that this is the best platform.
(Cheap/Free/Opensource iSCSI target devices for VMware ESX/ESXi)

1. It's faster than FreeNAS, FreeNAS iSCSI target is a file mounted on a SMB share (additional layer)
2. Does not have the limitations of StarWind free

Objectives:

• Reasonably fast access for file server use (VMware ESXi VM)
• Multi-volume replication for data redundancy
• Cheap 3rd Tier Storage for enterprise environment

Nexenta as an ESX iSCSI target

(Cheap/Free/Opensource iSCSI target devices for VMware ESX/ESXi)

1. Possibly working but kludgy if multiple targets are required.
2. Running ZFS over iSCSI as a VMware vmfs store - Ubiquitous Talk

Logical Volume Manager (LVM)

Need to deploy an opensource or free solution for 3rd tier iSCSI SAN for use with vSphere (VMware, ESX, ESXi) storage.

• Redhat, Wikiopedia, LVM1, LVM2, LVM How-to "What is LVM?" (tldp.org), A Beginner's Guide to LVM (with VMware Server VM hand's on using Debian Etch (without RAID) 

Woah! 

• "...I was advised by many people who had lots of Linux experience to never use LVM, as I would have trouble transferring files from an old slave drive to a new install on a new master drive..." - borgward (I'm wonder why?)

Cheap/Free/Opensource iSCSI target devices for VMware ESX/ESXi

Candidates

1. Openfiler (Redhat, Fedora Core)
2. FreeNAS (FreeBSD)
3. Nexenta (OpenSolaris, Ubuntu hybrid?); Home, download
4. StarWind (Windows iSCSI target plug-in, feature-limited free edition available)

Comparisons, Reviews, Versus, Actual Implementations

• FreeNAS vs Openfiler
• Running ZFS over iSCSI as a VMware vmfs store - Ubiquitous Talk

Recover/Change Lost Admin Password on Windows 2003/2008 Domain (Active Directory)

http://www.petri.co.il/reset_domain_admin_password_in_windows_server_2003_ad.htm

"...

Requirements

1. Local access to the Domain Controller (DC).
2. The Local Administrator password.
3. Two tools provided by Microsoft in their Resource Kit: SRVANY and INSTSRV

..."

HS21 Blades, Qlogic 4052, IBM DS3300 as an iSCSI Target for VMware

http://vmtoday.com/2009/06/ibm-ds3300-iscsi-write-performance-solved/

"...Read performance was decent from the array, but write performance was terrible, maxing out at 10Mpbs throughput and insanely high latencies on long writes when the system was under load.  This led to some long P2V operations, poor guest performance, and some questions from the project sponsors on why I couldn’t make the environment sing..."


http://solutions.qlogic.com/KanisaSupportSite/dynamickc.do?command=show&externalId=Post-10992037&forward=threadedKC&kcId=Post-10992037&sliceId=Post-10992037


"Issue seems to be with the Nortel switch and the qla4052. When first initialize they are able to connect to the switch fine, but when the firmware is loaded, they will not negotiate with the Nortel switch if the port is set to auto. Once the firmware is loaded you will notice that the link is down on the switch.
All you need to do is on the switch set the port to 1000 full duplex instead of auto"

"The problem is not the Qlogic. It is the Nortel switch. I have to downgrade the firmware version to 1.2.4.1 or older then everything works. Even IBM & Nortel, they can repeat the problem but no solution yet anyway. But again once you have everything working, who will change the firmware again."

3D Flip in Windows Server 2008 R2

Does it work?