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VMware, vSphere, ESX, ESXi, PowerCLi and everything else

Virtual Wood Blog - VMware, vSphere, ESX, ESXi, PowerCLi and everything else

Tag Archives: ESXi 5

VMware Converter 5 speed related issues

VMware have released Converter 5 which has some really handy new features the two big ones being vSphere 5 supports automatic partition alignment (which is huge in a shared storage environment) and SSL traffic for conversions.

I have noticed it can be a much slower than 4.3 which can be due to the the following reasons:

1.Reducing the partition size will change the file copy method and switch from block based (1′s and 0′s) to file based (think fragmentation / seek speed / etc), which can really slow things down.

  • If you are increasing partition sizes, this does not apply.
  • Recommended practice would be to just drop the allocation method to Thin provisioning (which you can do right from inside converter)

2.If you are running Converter 5 with the default settings, converter is encrypting all traffic from the source machine to the ESX(i) host over SSL. On older machines (or machines with a tight maintenance window), this is especially painful. Either way, if you want the fastest possible converter experience (and don’t care about someone sniffing your conversion), Disable NFC SSL in the converter configuration file (steps taken from the converter release notes):

  • Disable NFC SSL 1.Open the converter-worker.xml configuration file. It is usually located in C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone folder.
  • Set the key Config/nfc/useSsl to false. Save the configuration file.
  • Restart the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Worker service

3.Another issue I have come across is UAC. If this is enabled then it could also cause issues with connecting to the remote server. I would advise now making sure UAC is disabled on the source and remote machines.

I will keep updating this blog post with anything else that I find in relation to VMware Converter 5.

How to remove – host currently has no management network redundancy

During times when a LAB is being used with limited resources it is not always possible to have 2 network cards on the ‘Management’ vSwitch. This is not an issue during LAB or test and dev but will always produce ‘host currently has no management network redundancy’ which just makes the display look messy. This can be resolved with the addition of an extra Advanced Option for HA.

The following explains how the error can be removed but please this is only to be used when not in a production environment which should always have a redundant ‘Management’ vSwitch.

Right click on the cluster to be modified
Select Edit Settings
Click on vSphere HA
At the bottom right hand corner click on Advanced Options
Copy the following das.ignoreRedundantNetWarning and paste it under Options with a Value of True
Click Ok
Select Cluster Features
Uncheck Turn On vSphere HA and click OK

Note: This will turn off HA on the cluster but this needs to happen for the Advanced Feature to take effect

Right click on the cluster to be modified
Select Edit Settings
Click on vSphere HA
Check Turn On vSphere HA and click OK

Note: This will turn on HA for the cluster and the error regards ‘host currently has no management network redundancy’ will be gone

By Paul Wood

Nested VMware vSphere ESXi 5

Well of course ESXi is all the rage at the moment and I would like to just update a previous post regarding running nested virtual machines (virtual ESXi host and running virtual machines on that host).

I followed this and it works on ESXi 5 just as well as it did on ESXi 4 so have fun getting to grips with ESXi 5.

By Paul Wood