Installing VMware Update Manager 5.0 on a Windows Server 2008 R2

As with my previous post, I had to document a recent vSphere 5 install and since I already have the screenshots, I figure I’ll take the time to write this post to show what an install of VMware Update Manager 5.0 on a Windows Server 2008 R2 looks like.

Open up the VMware vCenter Installer and select VMware vSphere Update Manager:

The installer will launch:

Proceed going through the wizard:

It’s interesting to note that VMware vSphere Update Manager 5.0 still uses a 32 bit DSN:

If you’re install Update Manager on a drive with less than 120GB, you’ll be prompted with the following warning:

… and we’re done.

Installing VMware vCenter 5.0 on a Windows Server 2008 R2

While installing VMware vCenter 5.0 on a Windows Server 2008 R2 isn’t very exciting, I had to document one of my installs earlier last week so while it doesn’t differ too much from 4.x, I thought I’d take the screenshots I took and write a blog post in case anyone wants to see what it looks like.

Download and double click on the autorun file:

Once the VMware vCenter Installer launches, proceed with selecting vCenter Server and click on install:

Note that I ran this install on a Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit w/SP1 server and it was not necessary for me to manually install the Prerequisites:

1. Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1
2. Windows Installer 4.5

The installer for vCenter 5.0 will now launch:

Agree to the EULA:

Type in the appropriate values for the fields:

As with vCenter 4.x, you’ll have the option of using a local SQL install or a full blown remote SQL server:

You can choose to use a local or domain service account or the SYSTEM Account to run the service:

Note that if you don’t have a DNS entry for your host or if the server is unable to contact a DNS to verify that a record has been created for its name, you’ll receive the following warning:

The Fully Qualified Domain Name cannot be resolved. If you continue the installation, some features might not work correctly. For detailed requirements, see the vSphere Installation Setup guide.

Proceed with the install:

Notice that if you chose to use a local SQL instance as your database, the installer will launch the SQL Server 2008 R2 installer:

Once the installation of the local instance of SQL completes, the installer will proceed with the vCenter components:

… and we’re done.

Modifying load balancing policy for a vSwitch on ESXi 5.0

It’s been such a busy 2 months for me over here that I just realized I’ve written 5 posts in October 2011 and 3 posts in November 2011.  My draft items in my Outlook which I use to keep notes for blog posts is now at 102 items!  December looks to be another busy month but I’ve made a promise to myself that I’ll dedicate some time over the following weeks to catch up on my blogs.  Now that I’ve made my rant, let’s get on with the reason why I’m writing this post and the usual solution to my problem.

I’m currently working on a project for a hosting company to upgrade their vSphere 4 ESXi 4.1 hosts to vSphere 5 ESXi 5.0 and instead of performing an in-place upgrade, we decided to just do overwriting fresh installs on each host one after another.  The challenge I ran into was that these blades has all traffic (management, VMotion, VM traffic, etc) traversing through 1 x Intel X520-T2 with 2 x 10Gbps ports.  Since the switches have already been configured with port-channeling, the server did not have network connectivity after the fresh install of ESXi 5.0.  This set me on a search for the commands to modify the default vSwitch 0 load balancing policy to Route based on IP Hash. 

While the search did not take long and the information was available through VMware KB articles, I thought I’d write this post to include the commands so I can reference it in the future:

Command to modify vSwitch 0 to Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID

vim-cmd /hostsvc/net/vswitch_setpolicy --nicteaming-policy='loadbalance_srcid' vSwitch0

Command to modify vSwitch 0 to Route based on source MAC hash

vim-cmd /hostsvc/net/vswitch_setpolicy --nicteaming-policy='loadbalance_srcmac' vSwitch0

Command to modify vSwitch 0 to Route based on IP hash

vim-cmd /hostsvc/net/vswitch_setpolicy --nicteaming-policy='loadbalance_ip' vSwitch0

Command to modify vSwitch 0 to Use explicit failover order

vim-cmd /hostsvc/net/vswitch_setpolicy --nicteaming-policy='failover_explicit' vSwitch0

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Reference VMware KB Articles:

Changing the load balancing policy in ESXi using Tech Support Mode:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1011520

Specifying the NIC teaming policy from the command line in ESX 4.0:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1019864