Very true. Here's the situation:
We've had ESX 3.5 since 2007 - the contract expired in August 2008, and we didn't renew, for reasons that are unclear to me - I presume budgetary. In June 2009 a new IT manager came on board. One of his first big pushes was to do a formal infrastructure review via an outside consulting firm. I find out during the course of all this that he's looking to outsource significant chunks of our infrastructure, with a view to simplify and reduce costs, and a further finding is that virtualization inside the org is considered too complex and costly - too much to spend on training, support, etc, and his idea is to revert to one machine, one OS. He had some other ideas with which I don't agree. During that period, support for ESX is ignored, and nothing spent on it. Now, as of early last week, I find out that he's leaving the company - found a better gig. I'm going to pursue with upper management a new support contract, and to keep on with VMWare, as we have nearly 30 servers virtualized at this point, though some of those should be retired. I'd actually like to expand our VMWare to three servers, expand our Lefthand installation with a 3rd module, and spread the load of our VMs Kurt On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 09:44, John Cook <[email protected]> wrote: > Support = health insurance for your apps > Ask them if they would feel good about working without it. > > John W. Cook > Systems Administrator > Partnership For Strong Families > 315 SE 2nd Ave > Gainesville, Fl 32601 > Office (352) 393-2741 x320 > Cell (352) 215-6944 > Fax (352) 393-2746 > MCSE, MCTS, MCP+I, A+, N+, VSP4, VTSP4 > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 12:40 PM > To: NT System Admin Issues > Subject: Re: OTish: ESX 3.5 guest won't boot > > Yup. > > On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 09:34, N Parr <[email protected]> wrote: >> Maybe you should recalculate that ROI after this incident. >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[email protected]] >> Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 11:32 AM >> To: NT System Admin Issues >> Subject: Re: OTish: ESX 3.5 guest won't boot >> >> Correct - no support. Budget cuts ate that. >> >> On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 06:34, N Parr <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Yes in the olden days when we were on 3.5 and DAS I would get the pink >>> screen of death and new Perc firmware fixed that. Just a stupid question >>> but I assume you don't have a maint contract with VMWare or you would have >>> opened a case with them right? In the past when I've has similar issues as >>> this they've been able to resolve it for me over a webex very quickly. >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[email protected]] >>> Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 9:05 PM >>> To: NT System Admin Issues >>> Subject: Re: OTish: ESX 3.5 guest won't boot >>> >>> You are reading my mind... >>> >>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 17:01, Klint Price <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> No problem.... I have had some 2950's on ESX go haywire with DAS when >>>> there was high IO going on, requiring a reboot. You may want to check for >>>> newer firmware for the card and related hardware. >>>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[email protected]] >>>> Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 4:07 PM >>>> To: NT System Admin Issues >>>> Subject: Re: OTish: ESX 3.5 guest won't boot >>>> >>>> BTW... >>>> >>>> Damian and Klint and Karl: Thanks for your help on this. I really >>>> appreciate it. >>>> >>>> Kurt >>>> >>>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 15:39, Klint Price <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> Remember to power off all guests, and put in maintenance mode in case you >>>>> need to reboot several times. You may also want to shut off auto >>>>> power-on so you can bring them back online one at a time. >>>>> >>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>> From: Klint Price [mailto:[email protected]] >>>>> Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 3:38 PM >>>>> To: NT System Admin Issues >>>>> Subject: RE: OTish: ESX 3.5 guest won't boot >>>>> >>>>> Ok, a 2950 has dual core Xeons. Don't worry about the 90% on Proc 0 as >>>>> your average load is coming in around 60%. >>>>> >>>>> Let me know the results of your reboot process. >>>>> >>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>> From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[email protected]] >>>>> Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 3:24 PM >>>>> To: NT System Admin Issues >>>>> Subject: Re: OTish: ESX 3.5 guest won't boot >>>>> >>>>> Dual proc, dual core. >>>>> >>>>> Proc 0 = 90.72% avg >>>>> Proc 1 = 50.18% avg >>>>> Proc 2 = 49.49% avg >>>>> Proc 4 = 49.74% avg >>>>> >>>>> Total is 59.74% avg >>>>> >>>>> But it's been higher than that all the time I've been >>>>> troubleshooting this problem. >>>>> >>>>> Kurt >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 15:12, Klint Price <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> 90% utilization after downing two servers? Is that 90% on a single >>>>>> core, or 90% total? >>>>>> >>>>>> How many other VMs do you have on the LUN(s) that are still powered on? >>>>>> Any more than the two referenced below? >>>>>> >>>>>> What is the output / top CPU utilization pct for the processes found by >>>>>> running: >>>>>> >>>>>> #top (from SSH) >>>>>> >>>>>> (exit with CTRL-C) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>>> From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[email protected]] >>>>>> Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 3:04 PM >>>>>> To: NT System Admin Issues >>>>>> Subject: Re: OTish: ESX 3.5 guest won't boot >>>>>> >>>>>> In line... >>>>>> >>>>>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 14:40, Klint Price <[email protected]> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> 1) I wouldn't expect a power on to work until you can get this command >>>>>>> to work: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> vmkfstools -P /vmfs/volumes/esx2\:storage1/sus/sus.vmdk >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The host needs to be able to read from the disk. >>>>>> >>>>>> Reasonable. >>>>>> >>>>>>> 2) Do you have an additional non-production server on the same LUN >>>>>>> that can be powered off, with an attempt to restart your current down >>>>>>> server? Result? >>>>>>> Will the 2nd non-production server power back on? >>>>>> >>>>>> Yes. It's acting in a similar way - I logged in, and it shut down >>>>>> fine, but it won't power up now. Nor will a machine that I had >>>>>> powered >>>>>> >>>>>>> 3) All things DR considered, can you schedule a reboot tonight? >>>>>>> If so, you may want to consider re-seating the HBA and drives, >>>>>>> clear dust (which can cause cards to overheat), and reboot. >>>>>> >>>>>> Gotcha. >>>>>> >>>>>> One last thing for the moment: I've been looking at the performance >>>>>> chart for this box, and see that CPU utilization is hovering around >>>>>> 90%. I've got one VM that seems pretty far out of line from its >>>>>> normal CPU utilization (our Win2k TS server), and another that's a >>>>>> bit higher than normal (our Win2k3 file/print server). >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm thinking of kicking the one person using the TS server off and >>>>>> rebooting, and seeing what that does to the situation, before >>>>>> downing the other machine. >>>>>> >>>>>> Kurt >>>>>> >>>>>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >>>>>> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >>>>>> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>>>> >>>>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ >>>>> <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ >>>>> <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>>>> >>>>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ >>>>> <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>>> >>>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ >>>> <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>>> >>>> >>>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ >>>> <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>> >>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ >>> <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>> >>> >>> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ >>> <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >>> >>> >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ >> <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > > CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT: The information transmitted, or contained or > attached to or with this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to > which it is addressed and may contain Protected Health Information (PHI), > confidential and/or privileged material. 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