How to Upgrade from ESX/ESXi 4.1 to ESX/ESXi 4.1 Update 1

Its been almost 3 months since VMware released an update for its vSphere 4 product. I’ve began upgrading my lab and clients and wanted to share this little how to guide to help you upgrade as well. So let us begin and prepare the host for an upgrade: vMotion all virtual machines from the host… Continue reading How to Upgrade from ESX/ESXi 4.1 to ESX/ESXi 4.1 Update 1

vSphere Client: Call “Service Instance Retrieve Content” for object “Service Instance”

If you are new to vmware and are using vSphere client to connect to newly deployed ESXi server, you may see an error message similar to this: The server ‘http://ip-address-of-the-server’ could not interpret the client’s request (the remote server returned an error: (404) not found) error stack: Call “ServiceInstance.RetrieveContent” for object “ServiceInstance” on Server “ip-address-of-the-server”… Continue reading vSphere Client: Call “Service Instance Retrieve Content” for object “Service Instance”

Mapped direct-access LUN that is not accessible error

On Vmware ESX or ESXi: If you are trying to Vmotion a Virtual Machine (VM) that has a Raw Device Mapping (RDM) attached, you may get an error message saying: virtual disk ‘hd1’ is mapped direct-access LUN that is not accessible. This error usually occurs when there is LUN ID mismatch across hosts. Here is solution from VMware… Continue reading Mapped direct-access LUN that is not accessible error

Overview of the Veeam Backup & Replication Software

In my last blog I went through various hardware that we use for backup purposes and their specifications. Since I wrote that article, I’ve been busy testing and deploying Veeam Backup and Replication virtualization backup software along with Symantec BackupExec 2010 R2. I will post reviews and HOW-Tos on both but first I wanted to… Continue reading Overview of the Veeam Backup & Replication Software

VMware VCP410 Exam Promotion code

Its about time VMware released a promo code for their VCP410 exam. If you are studying for VCP exam then this could save you $175, should you fail in the first attempt. The promotion code below allows free second chance retake of the VCP410 exam, be sure to read through and follow directions. The VMware Certified… Continue reading VMware VCP410 Exam Promotion code

Unable to connect to MKS: Virtual machine config file does not exist

If you have your VMs on an cheap iSCSI storage, chances are you’ve seen this error before in VMware vCenter: Unable to connect to MKS: Virtual machine config file does not exist When this happens, you cannot shutdown/stop or start the VM but VM IP address still remains pingable. Even if you to browse the… Continue reading Unable to connect to MKS: Virtual machine config file does not exist

Poll: VMware vCenter Database Requirements and Issues

What Windows OS and database platform is your virtual infrastructure running on?
With over 20 database software platforms, numerous OSes, there is bound to be problems and incompatibility issues. I’ve had an opportunity to deal with one of those issues over the last few days. At one of my clients, vCenter 4.1 was running on Windows Server 2008 R2 with SQL Express edition, everything was working as it should until the VMware vCenter services started failing, vSphere client would not authenticate and log system admins into management console, so in other words, major problems as server provisioning and deployments were delayed!

Got a Virtualization Infrastructure backup strategy yet?

Ever since we deployed and migrated some of our IT infrastructure to Virtualization, backup of those resources, and virtual machines has been a top priority. Once that Virtual Machine (VM) is deleted from the database, there is no way to get it back unless you have another copy of it, cloned it, made a template from it or point in time backup of that VM somewhere other than the datastore it is running on.