Posts Tagged ‘HP ProLiant’

Tweaking ESXi 5.0 – Adding un-supported hardware to VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 – Adding a QLE-220 to ESXi 5.0

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

A continuation of this article – Tweaking ESXi 4.1U1 – Adding un-supported hardware to VMware vSphere ESXi 4.1 U1 – Adding a QLE-220 to ESXi 4.1 U1.

No official support for the Qlogic QLE-220 in ESXi 5.0, vSphere GUI client before tweak

No official support for the Qlogic QLE-220 in ESXi 5.0, vSphere GUI client before tweak

Because I’m also now testing Production VMware vSphere 5.0 (ESXi 5.0), and also need to connect the ESXi 5.0 servers to the fibre channel SAN using the same Qlogic QLE-220 4GB fibre channel cards. These are the PCI-E cards that fit in the HP ProLiant MicroServer quite nicely. As these Qlogic cards were NOT supported in ESXi 4.1, it’s unlikely they are supported in ESXi 5.0, and they are NOT, and not included on the HCL (Hardware Compatibility List).

Again, trying to get ahead of the curve, it will not be long, before I’m asked the same question as before with ESXi 4.x.

“ESXi 5.0 does not “see my network interface card, or storage controller.”

“How do I add this mass storage controller, network interface card,  fibre channel HBA to ESXi?”

A.Andy’s Thoughts

It is my understanding, that rather than a single oem.tgz, which contains the simple.map Vendor and Device IDs of ESXi 4.x, the simple.map file has been broken down into likewise individual mapping files, /etc/vmware/driver.map.d reveals 60 individual map files which contain the Vendor Id and Device Ids similar to the original simple.map of ESXi 4.x.

ESXi 5.0 contents of /etc/vmware/driver.map.d

ESXi 5.0 contents of /etc/vmware/driver.map.d

The file I need to modify is the qla2xxx.map file, to add the Vendor ID and Device ID. I may also have to alter the pci.ids files as well, but it’s unlikely!

the console command lspci -v reveals the same vendor ID and device ID

console output of lspci -v on ESXi 5.0

console output of lspci -v on ESXi 5.0

When ESXi 5.0 boots up you can see the individual driver modules files being extracted from their tarbal archives and loaded into ramdrive memory. These tarballs contain the mapping PCI ID mapping file and also the drivers for the device. All that is required is to add your new qla2xxx.map file (modified mapping file) into the scsi-qla.v00 tarballed file.

B. Adding the device to the mapping file

I’ve completed this by, extracting the original contents, including sub directories, copying my new mapping file, and creating a new archive.

  1. cd tmp
  2. mkdir tweak
  3. cd tweak
  4. cp /bootbank/scsi-qla.v00 scsi-qla.tgz
  5. tar -xvf scsi-qla.tgz
  6. rm scsi-qla.tgz
  7. Update and tweak the qla2xxx.map file.

  8. Modifying the qla2xxx.map file to add additional Vendor and Device ID

    Modifying the qla2xxx.map file to add additional Vendor and Device ID

  9. tar -cvzf scsi-qla.tgz etc usr
  10. mv scsi-qla.tgz scsi-qla.v00
  11. cp scsi-qla.v00 /bootbank/scsi-qla.v00
  12. restart server.
Qlogic QLE-220 in ESXi 5.0, vSphere GUI client after tweak

Qlogic QLE-220 in ESXi 5.0, vSphere GUI client after tweak

Viola! An un-supported Qlogic QLE-220 added and working in ESXi 5.0.

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HP ProLiant Microserver N36L – Got yours yet?

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

“I’m bulding Skynet, and I’m going to take over the world” – Andy, andysworld.org.uk

We all need to tighten our belts, in these uncertain times, and as electricity costs continue to rise, and it’s predicted that electricity costs will triple over the next ten years, it’s time to start costing the electricity used by our IT equipment [again!]. Many years ago, we consolidated all the servers and workstations we use by using VMware ESX 1.0, this allowed us to consolidate 20 physical servers and workstations with three large HP ProLiants, at the time they were Intel Xeon 500MHz based ProLiant 3000R, 5500R, and 6500R, these were eventually replaced with  three AMD Opteron DL385 and DL585, and MSA SANs. This has reduced our electricity costs, but not far enough. The DL385 uses approximately 600 watts just for the server, it has Dual Processors, and Dual Cores and uses 16GB RAM. With newer designs, some CPUs have become very low power. We currently use VMware vSphere 4.1 U1 to provide virtualisation for Domain Controllers, Microsoft Exchange Servers, Web Servers, SQL Servers, VMware View VDI 4.5/4.6, Firewall appliances, and other development servers. This is all Production, and then we have all the same servers in a Test and Developement Lab, in total approx 48 Virtual Servers, 20 Virtual Workstations of mixed versions from Windows 95, XP, Vista and Windows 7.

HP ProLiant DL385 Box

HP ProLiant DL385 Box

HP ProLiant DL385 Box

HP ProLiant DL385 Box

Enter the HP ProLiant Microserver – full load measured (40 watts). So I’ve purchase 5 to build a new vSphere 5.0 Cluster and using vSphere VSA (Virtual SAN Array). Total Wattage for Five MicroServers – 200 Watts! The wattage per virtual machine will be much lower, resulting in a much lower electricity bill.

Delivery of 5 HP ProLiant Microservers N36L

Delivery of 5 HP ProLiant Microservers N36L

HP ProLiant Microserver N36L (dented box!)

HP ProLiant Microserver N36L (dented box!) The server was fine!

The rumour is that the HP Cashback offer of £100, will be extended to 31 August 2011, it’s due to end on the 31 July 2011.

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