A friend of mine who is still a student has been building his own VMware lab environment for some time now. Yesterday he contacted me that he couldn’t get the “VMware VirtualCenter Server service” to start anymore.
The log showed: EventID 7021 “The VMware VirtualCenter Server service terminated with service-specific error 2 (0×2).”
A quick google search however showed that many things could be causing this error. Because it was a lab environment, I wanted to upgrade the virtual center to the latest version. Before doing so, I took a look at the VMware blog post covering the latest update 5.1.0B. In the readme it said:
“SSO service dependency on MS SQL
When SSO is installed with local Microsoft SQL Server, the services must start in a specific order.
SSO must start after SQL Server starts. If SSO starts before SQL Server starts, restart the SSO
server after SQL server starts.”
Doing so resolved the issue. To prevent the issue from re-occurring, I made the SSO service dependent on the SQL service.
I don’t understand why this is not part of the automated installation process though 😦
Tags: dependency, ICT, Microsoft, MS SQL, MSSQL, service, SQL Server, SSO, The VMware VirtualCenter Server service terminated with service-specific error 2 (0×2), virtual center, virtualcenter, virtualization, VMware, VMware Virtual Center, VMware virtualcenter, VMware VirtualCenter Server service, VMware vSphere, vSphere, Windows
For those who are unfamiliar with Desktop Virtualization, Train Signal is providing a free video series “Intro To Desktop Virtualization on YouTube.
Be sure to check out these websites and twitter accounts as well if you want to keep track of what Train Signal is doing:
http://www.trainsignal.com
@TrainSignal
@davidmdavis
Tags: desktop, infrastructure, Microsoft, train signal, Training, Training Videos, trainsignal, VDI, videos, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, virtualization, VMware, Youtube
People that know me, know that I’ve mainly been working with Microsoft my whole life. Lately however, I’ve been working with an Apple MacBook Pro with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion however and I intend to enough knowledge and experience to get the following certifications:
- Apple Certified Associate – Mac Integration 10.8
- Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) 10.8
- Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC) 10.8
So keep an eye on my blog if you want to learn more about Apple’s Mac OS X and its certifications. Read more about other Apple certifications on their Training and Certification page.
The “Mac Integration Basics 10.8 Exam”
For people new to Mac and OS X, Apple offers the Associate certification for Mac Integration. This covers OS X basics and describes options to integrate OS X into an existing (Windows) environment. The exam costs $65 and can be taken online.
Even though the guide that Apple provides isn’t that big to begin with, I decided to summarize it anyways. I hope it is useful to someone else as well.
Also if you want to get more in-depth knowledge about OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, check out this great book: Apple Pro Training Series: OS X Support Essentials. Before purchasing, you might also want to look for coupon codes as it might save you 30% off or more.
Notes / summary for the “Mac Integration Basics 10.8 Exam”
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: ACSP, ACTC, AFP, App Store, Apple, Apple Certified Associate, Apple Certified Associate - Mac Integration 10.8, Apple Certified Support Professional, Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) 10.8, Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC), Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC) 10.8, Apple Filing Protocol, Apple ID, Apple Mac OS X, Associate certification for Mac Integration, authentication, Bonjour, Boot Camp, Calendears, CardDAV, certification, certify, CIFS, Cisco IPSec, Contacts, Cross Platform, encryption, Exam, Exchange, eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, File Sharing, FileVault, Finder, FTP, Gatekeeper, HP Jetdirect, iCloud, IMAP, Instant Messaging, Internet Printing Protocol, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod, IPP, IPsec, iTunes, Jabber, Keynote, L2TP, LDAP, Library Randomization, Line Printer Daemon, LPD, mac, Mac App Store, Mac Integration Basics 10.8, Mac Integration Basics 10.8 Exam, Mac OS X, Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, mail, Messages, Migration Assistant, NFS, notes, Numbers, Open Directory, OS X, OS X 10.8, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Pages, Parallels, Parallels Desktop, POP, PPTP, Preferences, Printing, QuickTime, Sandboxing, Server Message Block, SMB, summary, System Preferences, Time Machine, virtualization, VMware, VMware Fusion, VPN, WebDAB, XMPP
In yesterday’s post I described that for my purposes it was still necessary to run VMware Workstation sometimes despite having Client Hyper-V installed on my Windows 8 machine.
What you have to keep in mind though, is that you’re already running a hypervisor when you have Client Hyper-V installed in Windows 8. Installing and running VMware Workstation might cause problems. So unfortunately you cannot run them at the same time. This is also true for other virtualization products like by example virtualbox.
As a workaround you can either uninstall or (temporarily) disable Hyper-V. When you want to switch between Hyper-V and VMware Workstation it is ofcourse best to just temporarily disable Hyper-V.
In this forum post, a couple of methods are described to (temporarily) disable Hyper-V. It includes creating a seperate boot menu entry to boot with Hyper-V disabled and modifying the setting either through registry or a command. All methods do require a reboot however.
PS:
- This kind of configuration is ofcourse not supported and should only be used for testing purposes in non production environments.
- Depending on both your hardware and what your planning to do, you might also want to consider:
- Running VMware ESXi from a USB stick
- Running Windows 8 from a USB stick with Windows To Go (WTG).
- It should also work on Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 and up, but I haven’t tested it.
Tags: Citrix, Citrix XenServer, Client Hyper-V, ESXi, home lab, Hyper-V, Hyper-V 3.0, hypervisor, Microsoft, multiple hypervisors, nested esxi, nested hypervisor, Server 2012, test lab, virtualbox, virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, VMware ESXi 5.1, VMware Fusion, VMware vSphere, VMware vSphere 5.1, VMware Workstation, VMware Workstation 9, Windows, Windows 2012 Server, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows To Go, workstation, WTG, XenServer
In a previous blog post I’ve already shown this script that use PowerCLI to get the percentage of physical and virtual servers from your VMware environment for each Virtual Center server. This script however only took into account ESX hosts and VM’s in each Virtual Center server separately.
This means that:
- The UCS blades weren’t taken into account as physical servers.
- No percentage was being calculated for each physical location.
This new script automates determining for each location the number of physical and virtual servers in VMware vSphere and Cisco UCS.
PS: You can get more detailed information from the script, but it has been disabled using comments by default.
Tags: automation, Cisco, Cisco UCS, Cisco Unified Communication System, corporate social responsibility, CSR, Green IT, Microsoft, PowerCLI, Powershell, Script, Scripting, UCS, virtual center, virtual infrastructure, virtualcenter, virtualisation, virtualization, VMware, VMware vSphere, vSphere, Windows
With the current focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) including Green IT, it might be important to know what percentage of servers has been virtualized.
This script I made will use PowerCLI to get the percentage of physical and virtual servers from your VMware environment for each Virtual Center server. You can specify multiple Virtual Center servers if desired.
Tags: automation, corporate social responsibility, CSR, Green IT, Microsoft, PowerCLI, Powershell, Script, Scripting, virtual center, virtual infrastructure, virtualcenter, virtualisation, virtualization, VMware, VMware vSphere, vSphere, Windows
Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) is hosting 3 virtualization related Jump Starts in January and February:
- Introduction to Hyper-V Jump Start (January 24th, 2013)
- Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals Jump Start (January 30th, 2013)
- Microsoft Tools for VMware Migration and Integration (Late February)
I’ve attended a couple of Jump Starts including those of Office 365, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 already and I think it’s a great way to quickly get up-to-date about a subject. Also there’s a great team of people working behind the scenes to answer questions and provide more detailed resources. Other attendees often also share their experiences and provide valuable insights.
The links above provide include a course outline and a link to register for the Jump Start.
I hope to see you there.
Tags: Cloud, Free, high availability, Hyper-V, hypervisor, ICT, Introduction to Hyper-V Jump Start, jump start, Learning, Microsoft Virtual Academy, Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals Jump Start, MVA, networking, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, storage, System Center, System Center 2012, virtualization, VMware, VMware vSphere, VMware vSphere 5.1, Windows, Windows Server 2012
As a passionate ICT person, I work with multiple virtualization products including Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere.
At home I’m running Server 2012 with Hyper-V in my home lab and even though it works perfectly, I miss the option to be able to run multiple other hypervisors beneath it like by example multiple Hyper-V, VMware ESXi or Citrix XenServer instances.
With VMware products like VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation you can enable this with only a couple of minor adjustments as described in these great articles:
For me personally, I’ll stay with my Hyper-V based home server and my Windows 8 Client with Client Hyper-V installed. For testing purposes however, I’ll have to use VMware Workstation 9 on my Windows 8 machine. (even though I have Client Hyper-V installed). This way I can still run other hypervisors when needed.
I still hope though that Microsoft will add a similar feature to Hyper-V in the future.
Tags: Citrix, Citrix XenServer, Client Hyper-V, ESXi, home lab, Hyper-V, Hyper-V 3.0, hypervisor, Microsoft, multiple hypervisors, nested esxi, nested hypervisor, Server 2012, test lab, virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, VMware ESXi 5.1, VMware Fusion, VMware vSphere, VMware vSphere 5.1, VMware Workstation, VMware Workstation 9, Windows, Windows 2012 Server, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, workstation, XenServer
In the last week, a couple of cool VMware related things have been made available for free:
- vCenter Operations Manager Foundation is the entry-level edition of the vCenter Operations
Management Suite that will help you manage the health and performance of your vSphere environment. It is now included for free with all vSphere editions. For more information about the complete suite, read the VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite Edition Comparison. Eric Sloof from NTPRO.NL also created a video showing of this tool.
- E-learning vSphere Data Protection and Recovery Fundamentals
- E-learning VMware vCloud Director Fundamentals
I didn’t have time yet to check these out myself. If you’re already using this tool or have already completed a course, please let me know if you liked it.
To keep track of free e-learning courses, bookmark mylearn.vmware.com.
Tags: course, data protection, e-learning, Free, ICT, operations management, operations manager, recovery, vCenter Operations Manager, vCenter Operations Manager Foundation, vCenter Operations Manager Suite, vCloud Director, vCOPS, virtualization, VMware, VMware vCloud Director Fundamentals, vSphere, vSphere Data Protection and Recovery Fundamentals
In the past I’ve used Microsoft’s virtual labs many times and found them really useful.
VMware has also created Hands-On Labs Online (HOL) now as well and you can sign up for the open public beta now. These online labs are ideal for people:
- Who don’t have the hardware to create these labs themselves.
- Who don’t have time to create these labs themselves.
- Who want to have a properly tested and defined lab environment with guidance and documentation.
Read more about the VMware HOL and the labs that are being provided. Also be sure to check out their blog and Twitter account.
I’ve signed up as well and I hope to get access soon.
Tags: Beta, Cloud, Hands-On Labs, Hands-On Labs Online, HOL, ICT, public beta, sign up, virtual labs, VMware, VMware HOL
blog.bjornhouben.com 