Author Archives: joshodgers

Nested ESXi 5.1 on IBM x3850 M2 (7141-xxx model)

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For my test lab I use an IBM x3850 M2 model 7141-3RM. Its a 4 socket server, with 4 cores per socket and 96Gb Ram running nested ESXi hosts.

Until recently, I was still running ESXi 5.0 on the physical host, with nested ESXi 5.1 hosts which worked perfectly.

Recently I decided to upgrade the physical host to ESXi 5.1.

Problem: My nested ESXi 5.1 hosts can no longer run 64bit VMs.

Now why is that? The Intel E7330 supports Intel-VT-x w Extended Page Tables (see Intel’s website here) or so they say?!

IntelEssentials IntelAdvancedTech

As mentioned by William Lam (@lamw) on his blog (VirtuallyGhetto)

A quick way to verify whether your CPU truly supports both Intel-VT+EPT or AMD-V+RVI, you can paste the following into a browser:

https://[your-esxi-host-ip-address]/mob/?moid=ha-host&doPath=capability

So, after running this on my host, I got the following result

nestedHVsupport

So that’s a bummer, I cant run ESXi 5.1 on my physical host with nested ESXi hosts running 64 bit VMs.

Note: 32bit VMs run fine.

So, Intel are telling fibs about what this processor can do, but that doesn’t help solve the issue.

Solution: If you have this processor in your test lab and/or have the IBM x3850 M2 model 7141-xxx (or you obtain one as they are a great low cost option for a test lab) run ESXi 5.0 on the physical host, and run ESXi 5.1 nested and you can run 64bit VMs.

Storage Capabilities not appearing after Installing & configuring the Netapp VASA Provider 1.0

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When installing the Netapp VASA provider 1.0 today, I was surprised to find the Storage Capabilities were not being populated (as shown in the screen shot below). As I have installed and configure the Netapp VASA provider numerous times and never had an issue, this was very annoying.

StorageCapabilitiesBlank

 

I had completed the configuration of the VASA provider (see below) and successfully registered the provider.

netappvasaconfig_blank

I confirmed the provider was showing up by going to the “Solution providers” in vSphere Client

NetappVASASolutionProviders

Then confirming the vendor provider has been registered as per the below.

VendorProviders

So after unregistering the provider then uninstalling and re-installing the Netapp VASA Provider software the problem was still not solved.
After a quick Google, much to my surprise I couldn’t find anything on this issue.

It turns out, it was a quite simple “fix” if I can call it that.

For whatever reason I configured the storage system first, then proceeded to complete the other steps.

If your having this issue, you can avoid the problem by configuring the VASA provider (shown below) in this order

1. Configure the username and password for communication with vCenter
2. Configure the vCenter server details and register the provider
3. Register the storage system

 

netappvasaconfig

 

Shortly there after the storage capabilities all appeared successfully.

StorageCapabilitiesWorking

So the above contradicts the official Netapp installation guide for the VASA provider, which states on P11 that you can add storage systems at any time,  but solved my problem.

Hope you found this useful.

vCloud Suite 5.1 Upgrade Guide

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I just came across an unofficial vCloud Suite 5.1 upgrade guide by Jad El-Zem which covers off the steps involved and a few gotchas to watch out for.

VMware Blogs – vCloud Suite 5.1 Solution Upgrade Guide