BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer
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@BRRABill said:
I was really surprised at
a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebootingI thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.
Not when updating the hypervisor. Not sure if there is any hypervisor yet that can be updated without restarting. Is there any product like that out? If there is any, seems like it would be VMware and I don't think that they do this yet.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@BRRABill said:
I was really surprised at
a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebootingI thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.
Rebooting for security updates has never been a railing point for any sys admin.
A lot of updates don't require the host to be reboot, think of Debian and CentOS. You can patch on the fly.
It is, but traditionally from the AIX world. Big Iron systems rarely reboot for updates even going back decades.
Linux does not need to reboot even for kernel updates but most of us don't configure it that way, rebooting is a normal part of systems administration and working hard to never have to do it has diminishing returns. but Linux has offered on the fly kernel replacement for a while now.
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@BRRABill said:
In XenServer:
When you select a size for a virtual disk, is that the max size it can grow to, or the actual size it is taking up?
For example, with Hyper-V, with a dynamic disk, if you say the size is 40GB, it appears as 40GB to the OS on the VM, but only takes up as much space as there is data on the host hard drive.
And since I picked "thin provisioning" in setup, ALL virtual disks will be dynamic, correct?
Dynamic is the wrong term. Thin Provisioned is the real one. Dynamic is a Microsoft only term for thin provisioned. Thin Provisioned is the name of the technology across the board, Dynamic is a term for the use of Microsoft's LVM technology that allows for thin provisioning. So no, using this won't install a Windows LVM, but it will be thin provisioned
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@BRRABill said:
I'm using the Datto device, and almost always have to use the ShadowProtect Recovery ISO.
Isn't that how it is supposed to be restored? When I look at their vendor's guide that's what it says to do.
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
I don't know what a Datto device is, or the shadowprotect (is that a product?) is.
Datto is a NAS and ShadowProtect is a software.
Datto is a backup appliance build on ShadowProtect. It's an all in one much like Unitrends but unlike Unitrends, Datto buys the backup software from StorageCraft instead of making it themselves.
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So it was a partition issue in BOOT.INI.
The partition was originally set to (2). I set (0) and got an NTOSKRNL error.
I set it to (1) ... and the server booted. Or, it is is appearing to boot. We shall see.
I also ran the XenServer "fixup" program. Anyone know if that is officially needed, or only if you run into problems? (I definitely needed it when importing the VHD.)
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@scottalanmiller said:
Isn't that how it is supposed to be restored? When I look at their vendor's guide that's what it says to do.
They have their own Datto branded recovery environment you are supposed to use. But, it never seems to work.
Me being on Server 2003 causes issue too, I think.
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Well, now there is another issue, but I know how to fix this one. (Had the same issue on a BMR of my other failed server.)
Strangely enough, there is a post on SW about this error (that was not fixed) but the posted posted a picture of his monitor, which was the old fashioned type. (This was in 2009.)
@scottalanmiller said:
"So that is what a CRT looks like. Are you working in a museum? ;)" -
That issue is now fixed!
Good thing I remembered that!
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/b3f18d7a-8c95-42dc-a0bd-3ca81e26d669/error-on-boot-stop-c0000135-unable-to-locate-component-csrsrvdll-not-found-reinstalling-the?forum=winservergenWell after a few blips, it seems to have worked.
Should I install XenTools?
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Yes, you always need the PV drivers for any hypervisor that you want to use (including Hyper-V) or you get crappy performance.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Yes, you always need the PV drivers for any hypervisor that you want to use (including Hyper-V) or you get crappy performance.
Are those included in the install "XenTools" option?
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Yes, you always need the PV drivers for any hypervisor that you want to use (including Hyper-V) or you get crappy performance.
Are those included in the install "XenTools" option?
They are the XenTools.
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I was not able to adjust memory before. Now after XenTools I can. (You can also see memory usage which is nice.)
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@FATeknollogee said:
@Dashrender said:
@FATeknollogee said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@FATeknollogee said:
@FATeknollogee said:
Not to side track this thread (apologies to @BRRABill ), what is the "hyperconverged" equivalent in the XenServer world?
To all you XS experts, what is the "hyperconverged" equivalent in the XenServer world?
Similar to Starwind in the Windows world
XenServer is natively that in the Xen world. Nothing additional needed.
If you had 2, 3 or more XS bare metal installs with local drives, how do you "hyperconverge" all the local disks?
Are you saying with XS the "hyperconvergence" just auto-magically happens?
Of course not, but it doesn't for any platform. If you're setting up a greenfield situation, then you design it from the ground up with XS with single shared storage.
Let's try this again:
In Windows, you can take multiple boxes, add Starwind or Datacore = hyperconverged using local storage (no SAN needed).
How do you do the same thing with XS?
This can do HC for XenServer:
http://www.atlantiscomputing.com/products/atlantis-usx -
If you REALLY REALLY WANT a gui to get HA setup and running on XenServer, maybe give HA-Lizard a look. Haven't used it myself yet (single host), but I've heard it talked about enough to remember it.... the name is kinda memorable.
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@travisdh1 said:
If you REALLY REALLY WANT a gui to get HA setup and running on XenServer, maybe give HA-Lizard a look. Haven't used it myself yet (single host), but I've heard it talked about enough to remember it.... the name is kinda memorable.
It's something I want to configure as well, 2 new host, and then download the HA-Lizard client to both, supposedly it handles the entire configuration from what @halizard said in a previous post.
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XS (and XO) show the provisioned size of the virtual disk. Is there a way to show how much space it is actually taking up?
(For example in Hyper-V you could just look at the size of the VHD.)
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@BRRABill said:
XS (and XO) show the provisioned size of the virtual disk. Is there a way to show how much space it is actually taking up?
(For example in Hyper-V you could just look at the size of the VHD.)
Same, you either look at the storage device and query it and/or you look at the size of the filesystem image file.
