When installing Microsoft SQL 2005 onto Windows Server 2008 you will most likely get the following ‘Feature Requirement’ warnings regarding IIS and ASP.Net.

Sean over at ‘The Sean Blog’ has put together a good posting on how to resolve this issue.  Check it out.

This is quite a straight forward thing to do though I thought it worth writing a brief post on.

Firstly, to use Templates within ESX you need to have installed ‘Virtual Center’ and be using the VMware Infrastructure Client (VIC).

Generally, unless modified you will be presented with the ‘Inventory’ view within VIC.  In this view you will not be able to see any of the Templates.

To view any Templates you may have already click on the small down arrow on the right hard side of the ‘Inventory’ button, ie:

This will present you with a drop down list box.  Select ‘Virtual Machine And Templates’.

This will give you a slightly different view containing your VMs and any Templates.  The appearance of a Template icon differs from that of a VM.

Ok, enough of the basics.

To add/import a pre-created ESX OS Template from another ESX data centre or similar copy the entire directory containing the Template and all of it’s associated files (ie: *.vmdk,  *.nvram, etc) up to your ESX’s storage using the ‘Datastore Browser’ or a third party utility such as FastSCP.

I personally like to have a separate LUN to store my Templates and ISO images.

What you will notice with Templates is the inclusion of a file in its directory which has a ‘vmtx’ file extension.  This Template related file contains various information relating to the VM.

Right mouse clicking this ‘vmtx’ file will produce a drop down menu with an option to ‘Add to Inventory’.

Select this and follow the ‘Add to Inventory Wizard’ to add this Template into your Virtual Center.

This sure beats the old method of using the Command Line!

Well, I finally succumbed to the lure of buying an ML110 G5 and ML115 G5 for my home server test lab.    At a sub £100 price each they offer great value for money - just add memory, which is currently going for £50-£60 for 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 DIMM’s.  They will join may pair of ML110 G4’s that I currently run VMware ESX 3.5 on in my lab.

There have been some great conversations between people on this blog relaying their experiences (good and bad) on running the recently released version of VMware ESX 3i, 3.5 on their ML110 or ML115 G5’s.

See my other blog articles comments here, here and also here for more details.

My first venture with my new ML110 server is to see whether I experience any problems or gotchas when installing ESX 3i (3.5).

So, the best place to start is to unpack the server.

The packaging as you’d expect is more than adequate with the server itself being supported by foam ends and covered in protective plastic.  There is also a basic keyboard and old style roller ball mouse included.

I remember the first time I saw an ML110 I was very surprised about how small it actually is.  It is approximately the size of a small  desktop PC.

The casing and front of this G5 server is the same as its G4 predecessor.

There are also the usual two USB2 ports on the front.

2 x PS2 keyboard/mouse connections, 1 x serial, 1 x analogue monitor port, 1 x NC105i 1Gb network and 4 USB 2 ports can be found on the back.

The side panel is easily removed after loosening a single plastic turn screw on the rear.

The CPU in my particular model of G5 is an Intel XEON 3065 (dual core)which runs at 2.33GHz.

As well as a different  network and storage controller chipset to the ML110 G4 the ML110G5 sports a SATA CD/DVD writer as opposed to an IDE version.  The hard disk is also larger at 250GB as opposed to 160GB.  There are free hard disk bays to add extra hard disks and 3 spare SATA 150 ports on the motherboard to connect them into.

There are four memory slots in total.  The ML110 G5 can take up to 8GB of PC2-6400 unbuffered DDR2 ECC 800MHz memory.

The server came with a single 1GB DIMM though this is obviously not enough if you want to use it as a virtualisation host.

The memory can be interleaved with a minimum of 2 matching DIMMS.

I am replacing the single DIMM that came with the server with a pair of 2GB OCZ GOLD Edition PC2-6400 unbuffered 800MHz DIMMS.

I bought these for £63 from the YoYoTech store just off of Tottenham Court Road in central London.  I have used these and the Corsair XMS2 DIMMS in my ML110 G4’s and they work just fine.

It’s worth checking out online vendors such as OverClockers.co.uk who have some very good deals on memory.

There are three PCIe (x1, x1, x8) and one PCI (32 bit) expansion ports.

Here is a real point of interest!

On the motherboard there is an internal USB port.  As discussed by ‘Fungus’ and ‘Loz’ on my posting here, this port can be potentially be used to install ESXi or have it run from there.

I will give this a go sometime soon and will post my findings as booting from flash and then using the internal drive formatted with VMFS is appealing.

Now onto the ESX 3i install.  The version of ESX 3i I am installing is 3.5.0 build 110271.

After inserting the ESX 3i installation CD into the drive and powering the server on you are greeted with a HP Proliant splash screen with three menu options.

At this stage all of the BIOS settings are at the ‘out of box’ defaults.

Once the ESX 3i build CD spins up and starts to load you are presented with the following screen.

Press ‘Enter’ to install (below).

Agree to the EULA

You are then presented with the following failure screen (below).  As you can see the problem is that ESX 3i is unable to see any supported device (ie: hard disk, flash drive) to install itself on to.

From this screen the only option is to reboot.

Although this looks like it could be quite a problem it is in fact quite simple to resolve.

Reboot the server and enter into its BIOS settings by pressing F10 (ROM Based Setup).

This is the main BIOS screen. My BIOS version is 0150624 (07/03/08).  From the drop down menus along the top select ‘Advanced’ and then ‘Advanced Chipset Control’.

Change the ‘Native Mode Operation’ from the default setting of ‘Auto’ to ‘Serial ATA’ (below).

Next, from the ‘Advanced’ drop down menu select ‘Advanced Processor Options’  and ‘Enable’ the ‘Intel Virtualization Technology (VT)’ setting.

Save these settings and exit the BIOS.

Restart the server with the ESX 3i installation CD still in the CD/DVD drive.

Run through the install process as previously described above though this time you will find that you no longer get the error message about the lack of any supported storage devices being available for the install.

Instead you get presented with a screen displaying the installed hard disk.  In my case this is still the single 250GB SATA hard disk that came with the server.

Press ‘Enter’ to continue…

… and then ‘F11′ to confirm the install.

Wait a few minutes whilst the ESX 3i installer installs 3i on to the SATA hard disk.

Once you get the install successful screen press ‘Enter’ to reboot once last time.

Upon rebooting your new ESX 3i installation will be up and  happily running on your HP Proliant ML110 G5.

Now press ‘F2′ to assign a static IP address, name, etc to the 3i installation.

When you connect to it using the Infrastructure Client it will show up as follows (see below -click the image to enlarge), complete with an VMFS disk that you can now add/install VMs onto.

I hope you find this posting helpful.  I will be getting the ML115 G5 up and running in the next week or so.  I’m always interested to hear from others with their experiences in running ESX on an ML110/ML115 or similar.

The following is a problem that I seen a number of times.  After changing the IP of the ESX service console (SC) via the Virtual Infrastructure Client interface the Service Console screen, even after a reboot, still displays the old IP address.

* Not my IP details and ESX server name.   

In the majority of instances the issue is with the ESX servers ‘hosts’ file still containing the old IP address (ie: pre service console IP change).

To remedy this log onto the Service Console either at the server or via SSH using a client such as Putty and navigate to the ‘etc’ directory.  In this directory there exists a file called ‘hosts’.  First of all we want to view this file to determine if it contains the old IP address for the ESX server.  To do this type the following in the Service Console:

cat hosts

This will display the contents of the ‘hosts’ file from which you’ll be able to determine if it contains the incorrect IP details.

If it does then you want to edit this file.  To do this start a text editor.  I use ‘nano’ as opposed to ‘vi’ as I find it easier to use and navigate. 

Type the following to edit the file:

nano hosts

Once you have corrected the IP information so that it now contains the newly allocated Service Console IP address then save and exit the editor.  Type:

^O - to save the file to disk.

then, ^X - to exit ‘nano’.

The changes to the ‘hosts’ file are now made and updated on your ESX server.  After logging back out of the Service Console and pressing <Alt F11> to bring it back to the initial screen you should, or shortly after, see the updated IP details displayed.

You may be aware that Microsoft has recently announced its change of licensing around how frequently an ‘application’ can be moved between servers in a farm*.

As it stands, at least until the 1st September 2008, one of these ‘applications’ can only be reassigned from one server to another every 90 days.

In times gone by this may have seemed reasonable as why, generally, would you have wanted to go to all the effort of moving an application from one physical server to another on a regular basis?

With the introduction of virtual machines and rather groovy virtualization products such as VMware ESX it is now possible to move a virtualized server running various applications (eg: Ms Exchange, SQL, etc) between physical servers with ease - manually or automated (eg: DRS. Live Migration).  This however does bring with it potential licensing implications as the regular moving of virtual machines back and forth between physical hosts would breach Microsoft’s 90 day mobility rule.

Under Microsoft’s new revised licensing terms applications will be able to be moved between servers in a farm an unlimited amount of times with no minimum time restrictions.  Here is Microsoft’s announcement of these licensing changes.  It is worth reading a  Microsoft released document called, ‘Application Server License Mobility‘ as this outlines those application products included in this licensing change and gives some good scenario examples.

Also, have a look at this blog posting from vmblog.com which gives a good follow-up to this announcement.

*Microsoft’s Server Farm Definition: A server farm consists of up to two data centers each physically located in the following areas:

· In a time zone that is within four hours of the local time zone of the other (Coordinated Universal Time [UTC] and not DST), and/or

· Within the European Union (EU) and/or European Free Trade Association (EFTA)

Each data center may be part of only one server farm. You may reassign a data center from one server farm to another, but not on a short-term basis (that is, not within 90 days of the last assignment).

Although it’s a great feature available for VMware ESX v3.5, Storage VMotion as you probably know is, at this stage, command line only. 

This is fine as the ‘interactive’ mode gives easy to follow prompts.  Though for ease a GUI would be preferable sometimes. 

If a GUI interface to performing your Storage vMotion tasks appeals then check out this VI plug-in called SVMotion. 

To be honest I haven’t had time to install and check it out yet though certainly intend to do so.

If you have, or do end up giving it a try then let me know what you think of it - I’d be interested to know.

Here’s a link to a really useful pdf document from HP which provides considerations when sizing the power requirements for a single, or rack of servers. 

It’s explains clearly the meaning of the following terms that you will come across: Input Line Voltage, Device VA Rating, Device Input Power, BTU’s required for cooling, Input/inrush and leakage current.

You may want to also check out the following HP links:

HP UPS and PDU Sizer

HP Power Calculator

HP Blade System Power Calculator

HP Site Preparation Utility

Here’s a link to a nice easy to follow article over at VMwareInfo.com that gives screen shot step by step instructions for installing VMware ESX v3.5. 

It gives some really good information on how to configure the partitions on your ESX install and give reasons behind why it is worthwhile not accepting the defaults.

The UKs first Virtualisation (spelt the English way with no ‘z’ ) Expo is taking place this (1st-2nd) October at Earls Court in London.

Click here for more information.

Getting Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to play nicely and integrate with SharePoint can prove to be a little tricky. 

There is some information out on the web on how to integrate and configure SSRS with SharePoint though below are links to the best I have found.

WinSmarts – installing and setting up SQL and Reporting Services.

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog - Integrating SSRS with MOSS and WSS.

Mike Walsh - How not to install Reporting Services.

Microsoft’s requirements for running Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated mode.

By far the best source of information for installing and configuring SSRS with SharePoint I’ve come across is this step by step document generated by Microsoft themselves.