Category Virtualization

Well hello VMworldians, attendees, random friends and foes throughout the interwebbers!   Here is a basic synopsis of the first few non-conference days and what shenanigans went down!    A story like this wouldn’t be complete without covering a little bit of what turned out to be days –3 and –2 respectively which were essentially the ‘commute’ for me.   I realize I’ve been quoting it as a ~44hr trip, but in all honestly when considering ‘local time’ and the time I essentially was on my way, consider it this way.. I started my journey to VMworld at 3PM PST (Localtime) on Thursday Aug 22 only to arrive on Saturday Aug 24th at 4PM, so lets chalk that up to a 49hr trip.   Probably one of my worst… but it is what it is/was!

Only to compound matters worse were my shoes MELTING in Dubai, I guess it was hot…

Unfortunately this resulted in nasty blisters on my feet which has effectively turned me into a hobbling mess.   I don’t know if I have JetLag because lets be honest… after some ridiculous travel like that… You should be exhausted regardless! So I’m playing all of that by ear!

But let’s focus on what’s going on with Day 0 and Day –1 … Obviously!    Outside of the standard name tagging and bombs of the Photo variety which sure beats the hell out of incoming rockets! (Though I’m not sure if anyone has ever referred to Josh Liebster (@jlobster) as an incoming rocket before…)

So the Welcome Reception kicked off with a resounding Success!  Cheers to EMC for having a ‘Win an iPad mini after every presentation’ I mean, if there were ever any better metrics to win something? Those certainly take the cake.   Special props go to the presenter of the session the 5 of us sat through, he was very entertaining, very good at his job of engaging and delivering.   The unfortunate side-effect of that is that after they built up a great story talking about VIPR it fell off after that.    It’s like OMG AWESOME+AWESOME=AWESOME == VIPR.  And then don’t say a DAMN thing about what VIPR really means beyond some buzzwords, though I hold that against the marketing group who gave them the pitch they were delivering; It has to be more than a slide saying OMG.

As always is the case… Was able to make it ~50 feet at most during the Welcome Reception because the traffic of conversation can be rather encompassing!   But I look forward to visiting various awesome vendors throughout the week, especially some of the smaller ones you likely have never heard of, but should.   

To top the evening off our good friends who run the VMUnderground Party kicked off a pretty awesome event at a very interesting and sizable location, so well props to them and future and further successes to them!   There may be additional stories to share on that… but I won’t open Pandora’s box yet!

I expect so much more throughout the week, and I’ll be meeting with some potentially game-changing vendors and partners to share the awesome that is they have to share.   As always if you’re looking for some particular insight, shoot up a flare and I’ll personally launch a vendetta to ensure we all walk away more educated. :)

Finally, A few comments…

This isn’t the first year I’ve had to say this, but VMware in their infinite wisdom are all like HEY LETS HAVE VMWORLD IN ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE CITIES IN THE WORLD WITH SOME OF THE FEWEST HOTELS. And then someone else chimes in, “When should we do it? I hear the America’s Cup is on until August 30th, lets make sure it overlaps so the already ridiculous priced hotels are even more expensive”.   I mean, that HAS to be the conversation because seriously? San Francisco? I talked to someone tonight who’s paying $618 a night for their hotel.   Not that ridiculous comes to mind but it’d be cheaper to rent out half of vegas and still host 200 simultaneous conventions while STILL having affordable hotels available.   Not that I’m bitter, I’m here but I’m not worried about *me*.   This is for all of the smaller SMB/SME organizations who need the benefits of Virtualization and a CONFERENCE of virtualization the most.   They’re the ones who suffer by the all encompassing high costs of San Francisco for a convention venue.

You’re not new to Virtualization, this isn’t your first VMware rodeo, but you find yourself starting to question… OMG DO I HAVE VMFS3 DATASTORES STEATHILY HIDING IN MY SYSTEM?! I mean you do your due diligence, you check and confirm that it says VMFS5 and that it has a 1MB (Universal) block size, but yet… you’re still not sure… Hell, you might even be saying WTF? 1MB BLOCK SIZES? WTFS?!  Well, hopefully this helps break through some of the barriers to not only identify whether you have VMFS3 datastores period, whether they’re actually stealthily hiding!

What’s the big deal with upgrading VMFS3 to VMFS5?

Yea, you read the VMware documentation like this; How VMFS5 Differs from VMFS3 – Basically by reading that you come to the conclusion of ITS EASY, JUST DO IT, YAY!  But to quote Jason Corbett @NGTJason “migrate > upgrade”

Why exactly though? I mean if you read what Cormac Hogan @VMwareStorage wrote so long ago vSphere 5.0 Storage Features Part 1 – VMFS-5 you might be pressured to believe that it’s all good, caveats aside that your VMFS5 upgraded datastores will rock out just like VMFS3, but take a gander at Jason Boche @JasonBoche VMFS-5 VMFS-3, What’s the Deal?

Differences between upgraded and newly created VMFS-5 datastores:

VMFS-5 upgraded from VMFS-3 continues to use the previous file block size which may be larger than the unified 1MB file block size. Copy operations between datastores with different block sizes won’t be able to leverage VAAI.  This is the primary reason I would recommend the creation of new VMFS-5 datastores and migrating virtual machines to new VMFS-5 datastores rather than performing in place upgrades of VMFS-3 datastores.
VMFS-5 upgraded from VMFS-3 continues to use 64KB sub-blocks and not new 8K sub-blocks.
VMFS-5 upgraded from VMFS-3 continues to have a file limit of 30,720 rather than the new file limit of > 100,000 for newly created VMFS-5.
VMFS-5 upgraded from VMFS-3 continues to use MBR (Master Boot Record) partition type; when the VMFS-5 volume is grown above 2TB, it automatically switches from MBR to GPT (GUID Partition Table) without impact to the running VMs.
VMFS-5 upgraded from VMFS-3 will continue to have a partition starting on sector 128; newly created VMFS-5 partitions start at sector 2,048.

I THINK I HAVE VMFS3 VOLUMES HOW DO I TELL, OMG WHAT IS THAT BURNING SENSATION

Hey, calm down, calm down… I think we can solve this problem pretty easily! And if the burning sensation continues, get that checked out!

I don’t know about you, you might have 1 vCenter, 3 Servers and a handful of Datastores. I have thousands… of EACH, so I needed something to do my scans and checks at scale with PowerCLI because I’m a baller, and apparently I pull that off rather well. :)

Methods of detecting whether you have VMFS3, VMFS3 upgraded to VMFS5 or otherwise mismatched sets..

• Block Size is greater than 1MB
• Partition type is msdos instead of gpt (*Detected by checking whether the StartSector is 128 instead of 2048)
• And of course, your VMFS version is VMFS3 or 3.46

But wait, didn’t you say above that partition types will change from MSDOS to GPT if they’re expanded? Doesn’t that make tracking harder? Yes.

Let’s get our PowerCLI on so we can crack this nut!

Get-Datastore | Get-View | Select-Object Name,@{N="VMFS version";E={$_.Info.Vmfs.Version}},@{N="BlocksizeMB";E={$_.Info.Vmfs.BlockSizeMB}}
// To check VMFS version & block sizes – Really useful to just check in general that your version is 5.54 and your blocksize is 1MB though if you VMFS3->5 In-place upgrade when VMFS3 was 1MB, this won’t reveal itself to you

Get-Datastore | Get-View | Where {$_.Info.Vmfs.Version –eq “3.46”} | Where {$_.Info.Vmfs.BlockSizeMB -eq "1"} | Select-Object Name,@{N="VMFS version";E={$_.Info.Vmfs.Version}},@{N="BlocksizeMB";E={$_.Info.Vmfs.BlockSizeMB}}
// To Check VMFS Version and Block Sizes but only listing mismatches you specify  – so if you want to see if you specifically have any 3.46 VMFS and various block sizes

Busting out the mad $esxcli syntax!

This is where we start to get real. The following examples are simple ‘one-liners’ which are cute and all if you’re checking one host, but I also give you one which will scan EVERYTHING so you can just sit back and bask in the glow of figuring out WTF IS GOING ON WITH THIS BURNING, HELP HELP HELP!

$esxcli.storage.core.device.partition.list() | Select Device, StartSector
// Dumps all Offsets – This can be useful if you want to see a lot of data… but less so if you’re looking for something specific…

$esxcli.storage.core.device.partition.list() | group-Object -Property Device | Where {$_.StartSector –eq “128”} | Select Device, StartSector
// Dumps only offsets which "equal" a startsector, in this case 128 – Now we’re cooking with oil, a StartSector of 128 leans on a datastore being VMFS3 or VMFS5 which had been upgraded from VMFS3

$esxcli.storage.core.device.partition.list() | Where {$_.StartSector -eq "128"} | Select Device, StartSector
// This will dump all of your partitions which have a starting offset of 128, same as above but shorter

Script me baby one more time!

OMG YOU JUST MADE A HORRIBLY DATED REFERENCE TO BRITNEY SPEARS. For what its worth, I believe she did some scripting in her days…   The scenarios below will just ‘do it’ based upon whatever hosts you connected to with Connect-VIServer, obviously the difference being ‘comments’ or not.

foreach ($myHost in get-VMHost)
#This tells the system to do a run the command against all "VMHosts" that you have defined as part of your Connect-VIServer
{
    Write-Host ‘$myHost = ‘ $myHost
    #Display the ESXi Host that it is operating against, helps if you’re scanning multiple vCenters
    $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $myHost
    #This sets the syntax and the context for the Get-EsxCli command to operate, a requirement for running $esxcli.Commands
    $esxcli.storage.core.device.partition.list() |
    #Use Get-EsxCli to list the core storage devices
    Where {$_.StartSector -eq "128"} |
    #This specifies we’re only looking for partitions which have a StartSector of 128, which could mean either VMFS3 or VMFS3 upgraded to VMFS5 Datastores
    Select Device, StartSector
    #When all is said and done, it’s nice to see it in a ‘pretty’ format to see what work you need to do!
}

Without Comments

foreach ($myHost in get-VMHost)
{
    Write-Host ‘$myHost = ‘ $myHost
    $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $myHost
    $esxcli.storage.core.device.partition.list() |
    Where {$_.StartSector -eq "128"} |
    Select Device, StartSector
}

Now technically you could use partedUtil but that’s a pain in the ass.  – But for the sake of continuity here is the syntax/results!

~ # partedUtil getptbl "/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.60a98000646e4f4b475a6a4975422d66"
msdos
261083 255 63 4194304000
1 128 4194298394 251 0
~ # partedUtil getptbl "/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.60a98000646e4f4b475a70516f34416f"
gpt
534698 255 63 8589934592
1 2048 8589934558 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0
~ #

So in case you’re wondering if the script is working properly you should end up with results similar to this below;

Results:
$myHost =  103.domain.local

Device                                                      StartSector
——                                                      ———–
naa.60a98000323764703424434e6246775a                        128
$myHost =  102.domain.local
naa.60a98000323764703424434e6246775a                        128
$myHost =  101.domain.local
naa.60a98000323764703424434e6246775a                        128
$myHost =  037.domain.local

And that is basically all it takes! This hopefully should give you the fuel you need to scan your environment with minimal effort and identify any VMFS3 datastores so you can clean that stuff up and MIGRATE!  I discovered a bunch of them which aren’t so kind, and what ensues is massive migrations!

Good luck out there! and if you can find some good way to hack esxcli to ALSO have it then correlate that data to what the datastore name is… I FAILED :)

Well, for those of you who have read my “Exposed” expose’ as in the past… I’ll do my best to provide an in-depth coverage of this tool, lessons learned and so much more!  Allow me to disclaimer for a moment, this IS a beta, so your mileage may vary and your feedback has a chance to shape the product.

You can read the infamous Jon Herlocker’s breakdown of the tool at the Office of the CTO Blog; Introducing VMware vCenter Log Insight

Jon provides some great stock photos, descriptions, images, use-cases and all that jazz… What I’ll show you, is Production Use, and I won’t be using any screenshots I didn’t take myself! :)

Getting Started with #LogInsight

WTF YOU’RE ALREADY HASHTAGGING IT! Yea I am, but I digress. :)  Alright! Let’s focus on getting started!   First things first, you should visit the VMware Log Insight Beta Community – There you can join the ‘discussion forums’ okay, I know you won’t seriously do that, but you can download the product!

And once you get it downloaded and you deploy the OVA/OVF you’re pretty much set! You may experience ‘errors’ when going through the configuration process, I personally re-deployed my OVF 3 times (remember, it’s a beta) but once I got past that and little browser mess-ups, it’s been SOLD since!

Look at that, nice clean login… seems pretty straight-forward (hint… it is :))

Cracking Open the Log (insight…)

I know what you’re saying DAMNIT MORE BAD LOG PUNS. Yea, that’s right! Alright, so you pop it open and here’s your dashboard!   You’ll notice events coming in, very simple interface, perhaps too simple but simple nonetheless.   The real keys will come into the next few sections.

Once you start diving into the details you’ll start to see more and more events coming in, and in their relevant and relative categories.

I want to share with you this little experience… Sometimes you may click on a tab and be all like WTF HAPPENED THERE WERE EVENTS HERE 5 MINUTES AGO. And that’s exactly it.  If you’re on the “Last 5 minutes of data” section, you’re literally only going to get the last 5 minutes of data.  Expand it out to an hour or so and you’ll start to see those messages you had seen just minutes before! 

And lastly your main page happens to list again further various event types of screens… And I get it, this is all nice and interesting, but what does it mean?!

Diving into the weeds

Once you start to get into the “Interactive Analysis” you start to get into the details, or quite frankly into the damn SYSLOGs!

One particularly awesome piece of this is the ability to ‘type’ something into the Search bar.  What this does is, it indexes all types of requests in the background and gives you an idea of how many of certain types of events or names shows up.  For example, if you specify a Hostname you’ll see how many syslog messages had that hostname, or VM Guest, or you name it.  Just type something in, and you’ll start to get some details and insight! (For security reasons.. I chose details which had no particular relevance but still provided you some ‘search’ context!)

Configuring your ESX environment!

You may notice upon reading the manuals which come with the software (hah, you’re never going to read those! ;)) but it comes with a tool called ‘Configure ESXi’ which will configure your environment.  Let’s say you’re like me and cannot run that tool, or just outright choose not to… Well, here are some alternatives to get your ESX hosts configured so they can start reporting back to your newly created SYSLOG Server!

OMG THERE’S TOO MUCH DATA

That’s right.  You find that your local traffic is okay, but you have a remote site which has a slower link, could be in a different country, or just over a Satellite like or something similarly ridiculous… Well, look no further!

When using VMware Log Insight you may want to change the amount of SysLog data you’re receiving

You can check your current logging levels with this PowerCLI command(s)

• Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "Config.HostAgent.log.level"
• Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "Vpx.Vpxa.config.log.level"

Chances are you’ll be getting a load of data coming in at Verbose ~1000s, even as high as 5000-10,000 logs in a 5 minute period.

I switched hostagent and vpx levels from "Verbose" to "Warning" and went down to ~10-15 logs for a 5 minute span!    If you have low bandwidth links this could mean significantly less impact.

And if you want to outright change those down to Warning as I did, or to any other value (say, Info) you can do it with these handy one-liners!

• Get-VMHost | Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "Config.HostAgent.log.level" -Value "warning"
• Get-VMHost | Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name "Vpx.Vpxa.config.log.level" -Value "warning"

HOW THE HELL DO i POINT MY HOSTS TO POINT TO THIS THOUGH!

I’m glad you asked that, I mean metaphorically of course, because I’m writing this, not you! NOT YOU!   I went through various iterations to make this possible, and I found setting the Syslog server easy, Configuring the Firewalls equally easy whether via vSphere Client or PowerCLI, but I found the reloading the syslogd to be a pain in the ass.  That is until I came across this little gem!

I’d like to note I am stealing/borrowing this from Caleb in his post; Changing VMware ESXi 5.1 Syslog settings via PowerCLI – It worked like a charm and you shouldn’t feel shamed to use it!   Be sure you thank Caleb for this code of course!

• get-vmhost | Get-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name Syslog.global.logHost
• #Get Each Host Connected to the vC
• foreach ($myHost in get-VMHost)
• {
•     #Display the ESXi Host that you are applying the changes to
•     Write-Host ‘$myHost = ‘ $myHost
•     #Set the Syslog LogHost
•     Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name Syslog.global.logHost -Value ‘server.domain.com,server2.domain.com’ -VMHost $myHost
•     #Use Get-EsxCli to restart the syslog service
•     $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $myHost
•     $esxcli.system.syslog.reload()
•     #Open the firewall on the ESX Host to allow syslog traffic
•     Get-VMHostFirewallException -Name "syslog" -VMHost $myHost | set-VMHostFirewallException -Enabled:$true
• }

And honestly, that is about it! Once you’re set with the right level of verbosity of information, and syslogs pointing to your newly built VMware Log Insight server… then it’s just a matter of collecting, and reviewing with the occasional troubleshooting as needed.  

I did come across this little bug which I’m sure they’ll fix eventually..

If you’re not seeing the bug, it simply is, if you have the Log Insight log viewer NOT in full-screen mode (like you have half the screen showing log insight, and the other half, oh I don’t know… with VLC finishing off the 4th season of Battlestar Galactica…) it’ll seemingly ‘truncate’ the text on the screen, instead of simply moving to the next line.   I’m sure it’d be pretty easy to fix, so don’t get too annoyed by it! :)

In Summation or Building a Log Cabin for your troubleshooting…

Wow, you couldn’t let it go without another bad pun? Yea, probably not… :)   There is a lot more to this tool than I could show you, unfortunately there are screens… which I could not edit down enough without destroying the value of what you’d be seeing.   This tool has vCenter Operations integration, the ability to pull and index all of your data points! I can see at a glance errors which are showing up, and then drill-down to find similarly correlated errors.   I mean, the tool isn’t overly too intelligent yet, but that is bound to come in time, and through our suggestions I hope!

I encourage you to check it out, especially if you don’t have something in place pulling your syslogs today, like Kiwi or Splunk.   This gives you a ‘single family’ set of solutions which in the end will have your virtual best interests at heart.   So check out the beta and let me know what you think.   I’ll keep rocking this tool out and continuing to pull in and index my extremely enormous virtual environment!   Enjoy!

So I hadn’t touched PowerCLI in a long while (Hey, I hadn’t touched the CONSOLE OF ANYTHING near production after having been in management for so long!   So, the first thing I decided to do was, “Well, what data is important to me… and what will make my life easier!”   Below you’ll see examples of some of those very scenarios, One-Liners and collections of data points! If you haven’t worked with PowerCLI this is a good way to get started.  I’ll also explain WTF I did and why, so you have some good logic and reasoning behind why to use some of these measures!  Also if you happen to have any really cool one-liners and scripts you’ve used, feel free to toss them into the comments!

Let’s start with … Well, getting started!

Launch PowerCLI CMDLine as an elevated user (This is especially important if you have a different administrative acct than your login)

Connect-VIServer

// You can paste in all of the vCenter Names in order to execute a ‘command’ against all of them.

Example, You can simply launch Connect-VIServer, hit enter and then paste a list of vCenters to connect to.  This is especially important if you happen to be managing more than one vCenter.

Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostNetwork | Select Hostname, VMKernelGateway -ExpandProperty VirtualNic | Where {$_.ManagementTrafficEnabled} | Select Hostname, PortGroupName, IP, SubnetMask

// This will then dump the ESXi Hostnames, IPs and Subnets – For the Management Network

Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostNetwork | Select Hostname, VMKernelGateway -ExpandProperty VirtualNic | Where {$_.vMotionEnabled} | Select Hostname, PortGroupName, IP, SubnetMask

// This will then dump the ESXi Hostnames, IPs and Subnets – For the vMotion Network

Get-VMHost | Get-Cluster | Select Name, DrsEnabled, DrsMode, DrsAutomationLevel

// Dump DRS Status

Get-VMHost | Get-Cluster | Select Name, VMSwapfilePolicy

// Dump VMSwapfilePolilcy

Get-VMHost | Get-Cluster | Select Name, HAAdmissionControlEnabled

// Check status of HA Admission Control

Get-VMHost | Get-Cluster | Select Name, HAFailoverLevel, HARestartPriority, HAIsolationResponse

// Check HA Status Levels

Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostNetwork | Select Hostname, VMKernelGateway -ExpandProperty VirtualNic | Select Hostname, PortGroupName, IP, MTU

// Check for MTU Mismatches

Get-VirtualSwitch | Select VMHost, Name, MTU

// Shows what the MTU settings on the Virtual Switches are

Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface –VM VMNAME | Select VM, IP, SubnetMask, DefaultGateway, Dns

// Dumps a hosts Name, IP, Subnet, Gateway and DNS configuration

Append ‘| Export-Csv “c:\location\filename”’

// This will allow you to export the results to a CSV file  – This is called out so you’re aware of the syntax to do CSV type exports!

Get-VMHost | Get-ScsiLun | Select VMHost, ConsoleDeviceName, Vendor, MultipathPolicy

// This will dump the Multipath Policy of the storage on the systems to determine what the MP configuration is.

Get-VMHost | Get-ScsiLun | Select VMHost, ConsoleDeviceName, Vendor, MultipathPolicy | Where {$_.Vendor –eq “NETAPP”} | Select VMHost, ConsoleDeviceName, Vendor, MultipathPolicy

// This will dump the Multipath Policy of ONLY NetApp systems

Get-VMHost | Get-ScsiLun | Select VMHost, ConsoleDeviceName, Vendor, Model, LunType, MultipathPolicy | Export-CSV “C:\temp\MultipathPolicyFull.csv”

// This will dump the Multipath Policy into a CSV as it’ll be a tad bit longer with multiple attributes specified!

Get-ScsiLun –Hba [software iSCSI HBA] | Set-ScsiLun –MultipathPolicy “RoundRobin”

// You can use these parameters to change the LUNs from Fixed to RoundRobin

e.g.) Get-ScsiLun –Hba vmhba39 | Set-ScsiLun –MultipathPolicy “RoundRobin”

Get-VMhost | Get-SCSILun | Where {$_.Vendor –EQ “NETAPP”} | Select VMHost, Vendor, MultipathPolicy

// Identify the Netapp LUNs

Get-VMhost | Get-SCSILun | Where {$_.Vendor –EQ “NETAPP”} | Where {$_.MultipathPolicy -EQ "Fixed"} | Select VMHost, Vendor, MultipathPolicy

// Identify the Netapp LUNs which are “Fixed”

Get-VMhost | Get-SCSILun | Where {$_.Vendor –EQ “NETAPP”} | Set-SCSILun –MultipathPolicy “RoundRobin”

// Set the NetApp LUNs to RoundRobin

Get-VMhost | Get-SCSILun | Where {$_.Vendor –EQ “NETAPP”} | Where {$_.MultipathPolicy -EQ "Fixed"} | Set-SCSILun –MultipathPolicy “RoundRobin”

Get-VMHost | Sort Name | Select Name, @{N=”NTP”;E={Get-VMHostNtpServer $_}}

// This will dump NTP Configuration settings

Get-VMHost | Get-View | foreach {$_.Summary.Hardware.OtherIdentifyingInfo[3].IdentifierValue}

// This will dump the Dell Service Tags

Get-VMHost | Get-View | Select Name, @{N=”Service Tag”;E={$_.Summary.Hardware.OtherIdentifyingInfo[3].IdentifierValue}}

// This will dump the Host name and the Dell Service Tag

Get-VMHost | Sort Name | Get-View | Select Name, @{N=”Tag 3”;E={$_.Summary.Hardware.OtherIdentifyingInfo[3].IdentifierValue}}, @{N=”Tag 2”;E={$_.Summary.Hardware.OtherIdentifyingInfo[3].IdentifierValue}}, @{N=”Tag 1”;E={$_.Summary.Hardware.OtherIdentifyingInfo[3].IdentifierValue}}

// This will dump the Host name and the Dell Service Tag values across all 3 identifiers

Get-View -ViewType HostSystem | Sort Name | Select Name,@{N="BIOS version";E={$_.Hardware.BiosInfo.BiosVersion}}, @{N="BIOS date";E={$_.Hardware.BiosInfo.releaseDate}}

// This will dump the hosts BIOS version and date(s)

get-vmhost | Get-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name Syslog.global.logHost

// Dump the current SYSLOG Configuration

You may notice that a lot of the Scripts identified in here are very selfishly scripts I’ve personally used… and I’ll tell you… that’s not all that bad ;)   I figure as time goes on, I’ll find other various switches and flags which are important and others ought to check out!  I’m constantly building and adding to this list as there are various scripts I’ll be running on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.   As I start to identify which items fall into the lists I’ll share my experiences with ya’ll here! Enjoy!

Alright, let me get it out of the way – This isn’t the first time I’ve written about VMworld and how to prepare for it, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last!  Feel free to check out the Appendix section at the bottom of this post and you’ll see all of the previous postings on the subject.  And I do encourage you to read those entries as this will take bits and pieces from them but they still stand on their own as an excellent source whether this is your first VMworld or your 10th.      And with that said…

Happy 10th VMworld Anniversary!

This is the 10th Anniversary for VMworld and with that, I want to make sure you’re getting the BEST and MOST out of this experience, so I’ll break things down into a few key areas.   Areas such as Packing, Transportation, Networking, Security and Safety are covered in DEPTH in last years Definitive Guide.

This year I’ll be covering a few other areas which are often overlooked and some may perceive as CONTROVERSIAL! Ooh… Imagine that! ;)

BUDGET! BUDGET! BUDGET!!!

Have you ever been to San Francisco? It’s like New York, with out all the… oh hell, it’s fricking San Francisco, a city with like 4 hotels and 25,000 people attending a conference the same weekend as the America’s Cup, which is a kind way of saying “If it wasn’t already ridiculously expensive, it just got even MORE SO”   So, hopefully some of the following tips will help you save a little money and make this trip affordable or even, possible.

Getting there

Getting to VMworld will likely involve you taking an airplane unless you live in the Nor-Cal area, and even then you’ll want to stay locally; Believe me – The details covered under Transportation speak to it rather well the reasoning, justification and even a little ROI/TCO on why staying within 3 miles of Moscone is so important.    For those of you who still have yet to book your transportation and as the day quickly comes upon us I advise you to check out ITASoftware’s Matrix as a means to find the ‘cheapest’ air fare and go from there.  It’s a great tool which will help you search and see what the cheapest is; and it does update as tickets disappear and only more expensive fares are left.   Oh, and if you can carpool from the Airport, doooo it!

Staying there

If you read my blog post in January of this year encouraging you to BOOK YOUR HOTELS NOW, then you should be taken care of! But for those of you who didn’t book your hotel at that time (I didn’t… but I wanted you to get ahead of it! ;)) Here are some alternatives which can help take the sting out of the $400 a night hotels which are currently available (Alright, seriously, Yea, the cheap-ass hotels are coming in at >$400 due to the America’s Cup, VMworld and the fact that San Francisco is a hotel wasteland.)   If you’re new to the game, you should check out Airbnb which is basically a service where people rent out their apartments, houses, rooms in their homes, etc.   There are a lot of options, as an example I booked 7 days at a really nice studio all to myself for $1001; Which to say the least is not bad considering $400 a night hotels are ridiculous.   So if the opportunity presents itself, find a nice place to stay with a reasonable price – that’s a far better alternative to staying at the Marriott SFO at over an hours travel away!

Eating there

The events of VMworld should be feeding you at most every opportunity, whether breakfast, lunch, or some partner sponsored dinner-type event.   This isn’t like the days gone past where food was high quality and flowing at every opportunity.   So keep your wits about you and take the opportunities for food as they come along.   There are a lot of food opportunities all about which you can also take advantage of, which won’t require you to break the bank.

Attending there

Okay, maybe you haven’t gotten your ticket yet – If it’s still before June 10th, you can get the $1695 Early Bird Discount! Either way, be sure to take advantage of things like VMUG Advantage, VCP and Alumni discount, and if your Vendor has a special discount code (Like EMC, NetApp, Dell, etc) definitely find out and roll with it!   Whatever it takes to get you there, paid for, and enjoying the show!

Bringing your Spouse?!

I almost forgot to add this, since I’m sure you can tell this CLEARLY wasn’t written in a serial fashion with me jumping around and editing!

Crystal Lowe, supporter of the Virtualization Community, Past sponsor of #CXIParty and all around awesome person runs this thing called Spousetivities which provides activities for spouses attending the conference to get together, network, do non-conference things, things to do so you’re not holed up in a hotel the whole time!   This is her 5th year of offering these kinds of activities, and this year is bound to be as epic as every year!  Definitely check it out!

The Top 5 MUSTs for VMworld 2013

1. Bring and WEAR Comfortable Shoes
1. To quote a good friend who once was working a tech conference show floor when a marketing head came over to him and said, “I’m sorry, you need to change your shoes”, this to a highly technical mind who is going to be standing on the show floor talking to customers for >10hrs a day.  His cordial response was, “I’m here to help revolutionize our customers datacenters, I’m not here to fracking sell shoes”.  Alright, maybe I slightly censored things a bit… But you get the point; and if not, I’ll hit it home!   Hey, you’re a customer, a partner, someone who is spending their hard earned money to BE there and learn about awesome and excellent technologies and network and meet with other people.  This isn’t Milan or the Club (in the club, club, club…) Be comfortable, be yourself and well, be comfortable… You’re going to be doing a lot of walking and standing, and it’s going to hurt!
2. Carry only what you need in your wallet and on your person
1. Remember that time your wallet got stolen in San Francisco and it ruined your whole week? Yea, it didn’t happen and it won’t.  The same can be said for your Android, iPad, Laptop, Bag, or some other ridiculous thing.   Hey, I get it… You’re going to be taking notes while you’re there, so you need your laptop… Wait, sorry I can’t say that with a straight face…, I mean… ;)  Just be responsible and reasonable.  There are a lot of good people here at the conference (I’ve found the owners of a number of Blackberries, iPhones, missing Laptops, you name it) but on the same token I’ve also met a lot of sad people who turned their head for a second and were without their precious (my precious…)  Please don’t let that be you.
3. Contact your vendor / Sales / SE and let them know you’ll BE at VMworld!
1. Did you know that your SEs not only want to meet, greet and see you at VMworld… they also want and need justification to get sent there themselves?  Imagine how grateful they’d be to you for giving their management justification to send THEM!  I’m sure their expense wallets will open like a waterfall for just kind of awesomeness! Oh, and of course they’ll want to talk to you about their tech or whatever.   But seriously, Vendors throw parties and it’s nice for them to know when their customers will be there so they can invite you, or get you in front of their Execs and Leadership for your feedback and all that jazz.   It’s a great opportunity to forge those partnerships even stronger, so take advantage of it!
4. Bring Business Cards
1. I say this every year and I’ll continue to say it.  Smaller vendors will have contests which ask for business cards, oh and people like to exchange business cards! Every now and then someone will say BUT I HAS A QR CODE. Yea, no one wants your stupid QR code.   There, I said it. Your QR code is stupid. Get a damn business card and exchange your information, I mean what’s the alternative? #5?
5. Get an account on Twitter (now) and start following the who, what, where of goings on leading up to and AT VMworld!
1. Yea. Get yourself a twitter account, it’s not difficult, and there’s a client for every mobile device.   Interesting fact, the live-tweet coverage of the Keynotes quite frankly usually blows away the ACTUAL Keynote. :)   We also use Twitter as a means of keeping everyone abreast of what is going on at the Conference, Where the Parties are, who is attending various parties, and after parties as well!   If you’re not on Twitter, the only one missing out is you.   Some hashtags to follow before/during VMworld are
1. #VMworld – Various event notes and VERY Spammy during the show, but good data
2. #vExpert – The vExpert Community is a strong one and they tend to be in the know!
3. #CXIDinner – I do nightly dinners, get togethers, networking, all that jazz at various locations AFTER all the parties are over
4. #CXIParty – … I still haven’t decided if I’ll throw a party again, but if I do… you’ll be able to get details about it here!

Things NOT to do at VMworld 2013

Here comes some focus which I’ll catch a lot of flak for, but I think it’s important to be honest with you and unveil the secrets of decades of conferences.

• Do not do any VMware Labs, or at best do a minimum amount of labs
• WTF MAN? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? BUT IN LABS LABS LABS!!!  FROM 2012 YOU SAID TO DO LABS!?!?!!!
• Yea, I said it. Don’t do labs. Thanks to Project Nee the VMware Hands On Labs are virtualized and in “Teh Clouds”, so don’t waste your time standing in line, or trying out a lab.   I mean sure if you want to see something after having just attended a session which you want to see live and in person, go spend the time to get to know it, But the days of spending your whole week in the lab are so totally over.   There are so many better areas to focus your attention.   Disclaimer; If a VENDOR has a set of ‘labs’ in their booth, AND you can win prizes like iPads or some crap, by all means go check out THEIR Labs.   Now I know the Lab Proctors will get all hate on me for telling you not to lab, but I can’t lie to you and tell you to avoid the cloud and project nee and more!   Your time is FAR too valuable for that.
• Do not eat lunch onsite at #VMworld and at the Moscone Center
• Okay now, you’re really starting to seriously piss me off! IT’S FREE FOOD, AND IT’S RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EVENT!
• Alright, a little disclaimer on that. It’s okay if you EAT there so long as you’re eating with people you don’t know or at least engaging in conversations which are advancing your purpose for being at the show.   It’s cute and all to eat with your friends and talk about the latest Lolcats or the trite marketecture session you attended with no real technical merit… But taking a step away, meeting up with a group of people you don’t know and eating and exploring the wonder that is San Francisco.  Well, it’s worth it.   I’ll be honest, this won’t be my first nor last VMworld, and I’m currently in the warzone in Afghanistan with some of the quite possibly worst food in the world.  And even with all that, I still would rather not eat the VMworld ‘lunch’ food. ;)
• Do not spend a lot of time with your co-workers / colleagues
• Awesome, now this is something I can get behind! Wait… Why not?!
• Your colleagues are great, I’m sure they’re the best folks in the world, now it’s time to pawn them off on someone else and get to know someone else and network.  Get outside of your comfort zone, otherwise this won’t be a conference, it’ll be a fricking bake sale.  Yea, I totally get that the analogy doesn’t work, which is even further reason to ditch your workmates!   Get out there, meet someone new, head to lunch with them! SEE WHAT i DID THERE?! ;)  But seriously, if you’re shy, or afraid or whatever, Find me, and I’ll introduce you to some new friends, it’s what I do.   Any other of my fellow friends will do the same.   So get out there, and network.
• If at all possible, do NOT pay for anything
• Sweet! That’s another one I can get behind! So what does it mean?!?!
• There are a lot of vendors here. Know your vendors you do a lot of business with, they have expense accounts.  I’ve been the vendor a number of times, they’ll buy you drinks, they’ll buy you dinner, they’ll do even crazier than that.   But let me stress.  Don’t be a dick about it. You know that douche bag who is all WELL MY VENDOR MUST TAKE CARE OF ME. Yea, You, Guy, No. Get away. But the rest of you, know that pretty much all food/drinks during all reasonable hours should be taken care of by someone else.   When it comes to chilling with some new found friends to not expect one of them to pick up the tab, if they do that is just so much more awesome.
• Seriously. Don’t be a misogynist or an otherwise stupid idiot, in public or private
• I know it’s a conference, and you are outside of your element, but that doesn’t grant you the right to be a douche bag, a drunken idiot, or a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.   @drjmetz summed it up pretty nicely in his Technical Conferences and (In)Appropriate Behavior  So, please don’t be that guy (or girl)
• And last but not least… Don’t be afraid to do something you normally wouldn’t do.  Whether it’s talking to that famous celebrity (virtual celeb?!), check out that vendor you’ve always had your eye on, attend a session which isn’t EXACTLY in your role to see what it’s like outside of that, or even to put on a cat ears – This is pretty much no holds barred! Enjoy yourself, but do it responsibly, this is San Francisco after all…

Summary

I know what you’re thinking, “Wow, this is one of the shortest VMworld Guides I’ve read yet!” Damn skippy it is! I don’t see a whole lot of sense in copying/pasting what the previous posts in the appendix below cover.  I said it there and it still applies, so definitely check it out.   This conference is all about you and it is all FOR you, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.   VMware, it’s Technology, the Community, this whole Industry wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for you, the Admins, the Practitioners, the Customer, all of you; the Partners and Vendors know this even if they sometimes may not let on that they do.   Get what you want and need out of this conference, and respectively… get value out of this which will benefit you and your organization.    If you disagree with any of the points made, let me know! I love your comments and you only make this content stronger and better.    Walk away from this experience better for it, and bettering the encounters you have with everyone else you meet.  No one will argue that merit as a matter of point!

Enjoy the show and I’ll see you there for my first time back in the US after over 200 days in Afghanistan! Follow my continued updates on Twitter @cxi leading up to, and during the show!  And don’t hesitate to come up and say hi! :)

Appendix

• A VMworld Public Service Announcement from your favorite #vExpert! ;) (Book your hotel NOW)
• The Definitive Guide to Prepare for VMworld 2012 in San Francisco (+#CXIDinner Details)
• Recruiting Virtual Talent: Tips and Tricks to hire and get hired at #VMworld
• With #VMworld mere days away, what to expect from #CXIParty
• VMworld Tips, Tricks and Prize winning #vmworld