View logs on VMware ESXi servers
Now we know ESXi is the way to go we need to start to trancition all our ESX servers to ESXi. This is said quicker then done. During a certain period we have build a lot of experiance managing these ESX servers. On of the biggest changes is that there is no more Service Console to login to to watch (using tail / less / more) the log files.
There are now some other possibilities to watch your log files.
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Via the DCUI (Consolee of the ESXi). Press F2 (and the password to get to the different options
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Using following URL http://<insert ESXi host name or IP here>/host
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Using the vSphere Client direct to the ESXi
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Using the vSphere client connected to the vCenter and then select the ESXi server you want to export logs from.
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Export the logs using PowerCLI using the cmdlet get-log
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And the last way is redirect all logs to a Syslog server. Here some examples of Syslog servers you can use. Depending on the needs you can use the FREE version of these syslog servers
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Vmware vMA Appliance www.vmware.com/support/developer/vima/vima40/doc/vma_40_guide.pdf#page=26
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KIWI syslog server (Windows Service)
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SyslogAppliance (Linux Appliance)
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www.splunk.com/ (Linux Appliance)
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Other suggestions of nice syslog setups are welcome and will be added in here.
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BC8372 – SRM Futures and more
VMware is working on a new SRM version in the labs. if you want to know more on SRM goto VMware SRM
I will give you here some product higlights (can change because product is still in devellopment.
* both sites (protected and recovery) are visible in 1 interface. Communication will be encrypted between sites. Certificates can be used.
* Array Managers for both sites can be configured from within one SRM UI. There will be tight integration towards storage.
* SRA interface will be available for each adapter. This will give you a overview of the arrays.
* Array Diagnostics is available to have an overview on storage connections
* Protection groups can be organized in folders
* Protection groups are available for both sites. This to enable failback.
* Protection groups will give of status of individual VM’s.
* Recovery plans are available for both sites to support failback.
* Quick summary for recovery plan and last operation.
* VM startup order can be set in recovery plann
* You can create VM dependencies. Can also start scripts before and after a VM poweron
* IP Custimazation can now be set in VM configuration. You can set een ip config for protected and recovery site.
* Also IPv6 support.
* Possible to do a planned failover. This will assure no data loss dureing migration. This is possible because of tight integration with storage.
* Dashboard will show evolution of the failover on VM level.
* after a failover a Reprotect can be done so a failback can be done without losing data. SRM will tell to the storage to start replication the the other way. A status can be follwoed.
Looking at all these new features, we can hope this version is launched very soon??
Nice work VMware, go on.