ESX

AppAssure Replay 4 for vSphere Backup and Restore

So we all know who the big players in the VMware virtualization backup game are…Veeam, vRanger, PHDvirtual…to name a few of the more common ones.  A new one has come into the mainstream, AppAssure.  AppAssure has a product called Replay.

I had the pleasure of watching a short video regarding the solution which you can see below.  AppAssure Replay is taking things a step further and attempting to consolidate both the physical and virtual backup worlds.  Their product allows for restore on to either virtual or physical machines and even to different hardware in the physical world.  I know from talking with some virtualization customers in the past that this is one thing that people think needs to happen.  That is truly a matter for debate and a different post.  My personal opinion is that if someone can do it and do it well…then by all means bring it!  (Yes, I said bring it…like the movie Bring It On…)

After reading a bit about the product and watching the introduction video, I am excited to actually see it in motion.  Some of the features that are exciting to see are the failover to virtual machine for physical servers, the snapshot compression and dedupe, and the automated application recovery validation.  I also want to see if their claim to being the world’s fastest backup and recovery stands true.  (Does that mean a possible post comparing different solutions?)

Check out the video below and I should have another post coming soon regarding my trials and tribulations with the product!  You can also check out AppAssure’s site by going to http://www.appassure.com.

Adjusting the amount of hostd log files

There was a question posted on the VMware Community Forums regarding the ability to increase the number of hostd log files.  Here is the solution I provided:

To change the max amount of log files for hostd you will need to edit /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml. In the file you will find the following section:



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   <log>

      <directory>/var/log/vmware/</directory>

      <name>hostd</name>

      <outputToConsole>false</outputToConsole>

      <level>verbose</level>

   </log>

You will want to add <maxFileNum>numberLogs</maxFileNum> like so:



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   &lt;log&gt;

      &lt;directory&gt;/var/log/vmware/&lt;/directory&gt;

      &lt;name&gt;hostd&lt;/name&gt;

      &lt;outputToConsole&gt;false&lt;/outputToConsole&gt;

      &lt;level&gt;verbose&lt;/level&gt;

      &lt;maxFileNum&gt;10&lt;/maxFileNum&gt;

   &lt;/log&gt;

Your logs, however, should have multiple gzipped versions or rotated logs in /var/log/vmware. You will probably see /var/log/vmware/hostd-#.log.gz in there. If you do then you can view those logs with the following command:

# zless /var/log/vmware/hostd-1.log.gz

VCP-410 Study Guide Posts

As I start gearing up for my VCP-410 exam I decided I would post my progress and information regarding each objective as I go through them.  I know that there is plenty of information online for others but would it really hurt to see more?  My hopes are that I can get this information out for others who will be attempting their VCP-410 exams soon as well.  I hope that everyone will find this information useful!  Look for the first objective posts to come this weekend as I sit down and run through Objective 1 for the VCP-410!

Datastore Size Reporting via PowerCLI Script

Datastore Size Reporting via PowerCLI Script

After pulling together some different resources from the likes of Alan Renouf, Luc Dekens, Eric Sloof, and others in the PowerCLI community (Forgive me if I didn’t mention all but I read through a lot of different people’s posts!), I have pieced together something that I use regularly to report datastore sizes and amounts of free space.  All sent to you in a nice HTML e-mail.



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@"

===============================================================================

Title:             Report-Datastores.ps1

Description:     Report Datastore usage for all Datastores managed by vCenter

Requirements:     Windows Powershell and the VI Toolkit

Usage:            .\Report-Datastores.ps1

===============================================================================

"@



#Global Functions

#This function generates a nice HTML output that uses CSS for style formatting.

function Generate-Report {

    Write-Output "<html><head><title></title><style type=""text/css"">.Error {color:#FF0000;font-weight: bold;}.Title {background: #0077D4;color: #FFFFFF;text-align:center;font-weight: bold;}.Normal-left {text-align:left;}.Normal {text-align:right;}</style></head><body><table><tr class=""Title""><td colspan=""4"">VMware Datastore Report</td></tr><tr><td>Datastore  </td><td>Capacity(GB)  </td><td>Used(GB)  </td><td>% Free  </td></tr>"



                Foreach ($store in $report){

                    Write-Output "<td class=""Normal-left"">$($store.name)</td><td class=""Normal"">$($store.CapacityGB)</td><td class=""Normal"">$($store.UsedGB)</td><td class=""Normal"">$($store.PercFree)</td></tr> "

                }

        Write-Output "</table></body></html>"

    }



#Login details

$username = 'changeme'

$password = 'supersecret'



#Current, Previous, Difference File information

$digits = 2

$Folder = 'C:\Reports'



#List of servers including Virtual Center Server.  The account this script will run as will need at least Read-Only access to Cirtual Center

$VIServer = "vc1.example.net"    #Chance to DNS Names/IP addresses of your ESXi servers or Virtual Center Server



#Initialise Array

$Report = @()



# Connect to Virtual Center

$VC = Connect-VIServer $VIServer -user $username -password $password



# Get all datastores and put them in alphabetical order

#$datastores = Get-Datastore | Sort-Object Name



#Get all datastores and put them in alphabetical order

        foreach ($server in $serverlist){



        # Check is server is a Virtual Center Server and connect with current user

        if ($server -eq "VCServer"){Connect-VIServer $VIServer}



        # Use specific login details for the rest of servers in $serverlist

        else {Connect-VIServer $VIServer -user $username -password $password}



        Get-Datastore | Sort-Object Name | %{

            $Store = {} | Select Name, CapacityGB, UsedGB, PercFree

            $Store.Name = $_.name

            $Store.CapacityGB = [math]::Round($_.capacityMB/1024,$digits)

            $Store.UsedGB = [math]::Round(($_.CapacityMB - $_.FreeSpaceMB)/1024,$digits)

            $Store.PercFree = [math]::Round(100*$_.FreeSpaceMB/$_.CapacityMB,$digits)

            $Report += $Store

                                }

        # Disconnect from Virtual Center

        Disconnect-VIServer -Confirm:$False

        }



# Disconnect from Virtual Center

Disconnect-VIServer * -Confirm:$False



# Generate the report and email it as a HTML body of an email

Generate-Report > "$Folder\Report-Datastore.html"

    IF ($Report -ne ""){

    $SmtpClient = New-Object system.net.mail.smtpClient

    $SmtpClient.host = "my.smtp.host"   #Change to a SMTP server in your environment

    $MailMessage = New-Object system.net.mail.mailmessage

    $MailMessage.from = "System.Automation@example.com"   #Change to email address you want emails to be coming from

    $MailMessage.To.add("yomomma@example.com")    #Change to email address you would like to receive emails.

    $MailMessage.IsBodyHtml = 1

    $MailMessage.Subject = "VMware Datastore Report"

    $MailMessage.Body = Generate-Report

    $SmtpClient.Send($MailMessage)}
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