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Creating a DSN in the ODBC Data Source Administrator

 

If you are using Microsoft Windows, you must first create and configure the ODBC connection to your data source by means of the ODBC Data Source Administrator before you can create the ODBC source system in the PCo Management Console. To do so, you must create a Data Source Name (DSN) for the data source in the ODBC Data Source Administrator.

Procedure

1. You can start the ODBC Data Source Administrator from the start menu under  Run odbcad32.exe .
    Note

   If you are using a 64-bit version of Windows, you must ensure that you are using the ODBC Data Source Administrator in the 32-bit version. A 32-bit version and a 64-bit version of the ODBC Data Source Administrator are available in the 64-bit version of Windows7. In this Windows version, you start the 64-bit version of the ODBC Data Source Administrator from the start menu with Run. The System Data Source Name entries that are created using the 64-bit version are not taken into account by PCo, however.

   The valid 32-bit version is located in the subfolder SysWOW64 in the Windows directory; for example, under C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe.

   If you create User Data Source Name entries instead of System Data Source Name entries, you can also use the 64-bit version of the ODBC Data Source Administrator.
   After the odbcad32.exe is started, the ODBC Data Source Administrator dialog box is displayed.
2. You must add a Data Source Name for the database that you want to use as the data source. The following types are available:
   • User DSN
     On the User DSN tab, you can add a user-specific Data Source Name (DSN) for the data source of your choice. If you are using a User DSN, a connection is only created for the Windows user who is logged on and only that user can see and use this connection.
   • System DSN
     You can add an entry for the data source of your choice on the System DSN tab. All users who log on to the system can then see and use the System DSN.
    Note

   You can create a User DSN and a System DSN with the same name. In this case, only the User DSNis displayed in the PCo Management Console; the System DSN with the same name is not displayed. For that reason, you must not use the same name for a User DSN and a System DSN. Duplicated names are not possible on the User DSN or System DSN tabs. The ODBC Data Source Administratorissues a message if an attempt is made to use duplicated names.
3. You have to select an ODBC driver for the data source. The ODBC drivers are provided by each database provider. For that reason, the dialog for configuring the ODBC connection can be built up differently.

Example

Example for creating a System DSN for an Excel file that you want PCo to use as the data source:

1. In the ODBC Data Source Administrator, click the System DSN tab.
2. Choose the Add pushbutton.
   The Create New Data Source dialog box appears.
3. Choose the driver; for example, Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls).
   The ODBC Microsoft Excel Set Up dialog box appears.
4. Enter the following data:
   • Data Source Name
     Here you can enter a name of your choice for the file that you want to use as a data source. This name is displayed later in PCo on the ODBC Database Connection tab with the addition (System DSN).
   • Description
     You can enter a short description here.
   • Version
     Choose the Excel version of your file.
5. Choose the Select Workbook pushbutton to select the directory and the Excel file you want.
6. Confirm by choosing OK.
   The System DSN is now displayed in the ODBC Data Source Administrator and in the PCo Management Console on the ODBC Database Connection tab.

If the vCenterserver goes down with a situation that it was pre configured with vSphere HA and DRS, so after power down will HA and DRS perform their task?

vSphere HA is not dependent on vCenterserver for its operations as when HA is configured it installs an agent into each host which does its part and is not dependent on vCenterserver. Also HA doesnot uses vMotion, it justs restarts the vms into another host in any case of host failure.

Further vSphere DRS is very much dependent on vCenterserver as it uses vMotion for its action for live migration of vms between multiple hosts so in case vCenterserver goes down the vMotion won't work leading to failure of DRS.

What is the difference between Type 1 and Type 2 Hypervisor?

 Type 1 Hypervisor

• This is also known as Bare Metal or Embedded or Native Hypervisor.
• It works directly on the hardware of the host and can monitor operating systems that run above the hypervisor.
• It is completely independent from the Operating System.
• The hypervisor is small as its main task is sharing and managing hardware resources between different operating systems.
• A major advantage is that any problems in one virtual machine or guest operating system do not affect the other guest operating systems running on the hypervisor.
• Examples: VMware ESXi Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix/Xen Server

Type 2 Hypervisor

• This is also known as Hosted Hypervisor.
• In this case, the hypervisor is installed on an operating system and then supports other operating systems above it.
• It is completely dependent on host Operating System for its operations
• While having a base operating system allows better specification of policies, any problems in the base operating system a ffects the entire system as well even if the hypervisor running above the base OS is secure.
• Examples: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Oracle Virtual Box

What happens if vCenter Server is offline when a failover event occurs?

When Fault Tolerance is configured for a virtual machine, vCenter Server need not be online for FT to work. Even if vCenter Server is offline, failover still occurs from the Primary to the Secondary virtual machine. Additionally, the spawning of a new Secondary virtual machine also occurs without vCenter Server.

How many virtual CPUs can I use on a Fault Tolerant virtual machine ?

vCenter Server 4.x and vCenter Server 5.x support 1 virtual CPU per protected virtual machine.

In a cluster with more than 3 hosts, can you tell Fault Tolerance where to put the Fault Tolerance virtual machine or does it chose on its own?

You can place the original (or Primary virtual machine). You have full control with DRS or vMotion to assign it to any node. The placement of the Secondary, when created, is automatic based on the available hosts. But when the Secondary is created and placed, you can vMotion it to the preferred host.

What is VMware Fault Tolerance?

• VMware Fault Tolerance provides continuous availability to applications running in a virtual machine, preventing downtime and data loss in the event of server failures.
• VMware Fault Tolerance, when enabled for a virtual machine, creates a live shadow instance of the primary, running on another physical server.
• The two instances are kept in virtual lockstep with each other using VMware vLockstep technology
• The two virtual machines play the exact same set of events, because they get the exact same set of inputs at any given time.
• The two virtual machines constantly heartbeat against each other and if either virtual machine instance loses the heartbeat, the other takes over immediately. The heartbeats are very frequent, with millisecond intervals, making the failover instantaneous with no loss of data or state.
• VMware Fault Tolerance requires a dedicated network connection, separate from the VMware VMotion network, between the two physical servers.

What is VDI?

• VDI stands for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure where end user physical machine like desktop or laptop are virtualized due to which VMware described VDI as "delivering desktops from the data center”.
• Once VDI is used the end user connect to their desktop using a device called thin client.
• The end user can also connect to their desktop using VMware Horizon View installed on any desktop or mobile devices

What is the difference between Thick provision Lazy Zeroed, Thick provision Eager Zeroed and Thin provision?

Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed

• Creates a virtual disk in a default thick format.
• Space required for the virtual disk is allocated when the virtual disk is created.
• Data remaining on the physical device is not erased during creation, but is zeroed out on demand at a later time on first write from the virtual machine.
• Using the default flat virtual disk format does not zero out or eliminate the possibility of recovering deleted files or restoring old data that might be present on this allocated space.
• You cannot convert a flat disk to a thin disk.

Thick Provision Eager Zeroed

• A type of thick virtual disk that supports clustering features such as Fault Tolerance.
• Space required for the virtual disk is allocated at creation time.
• In contrast to the flat format, the data remaining on the physical device is zeroed out when the virtual disk is created.
• It might take much longer to create disks in this format than to create other types of disks.

Thin Provision

• It provides on on-demand allocation of blocks of data.
• All the space allocated at the time of creation of virtual disk is not utilized on the hard disk, rather only the size with utilized data is locked and the size increases as the amount of data is increased on the disk.
• With thin provisioning, storage capacity utilization efficiency can be automatically driven up towards 100% with very little administrative overhead.

What is a snapshot?

A snapshot is a “point in time image” of a virtual guest operating system (VM). That snapshot contains an image of the VMs disk, RAM, and devices at the time the snapshot was taken. With the snapshot, you can return the VM to that point in time, whenever you choose. You can take snapshots of your VMs, no matter what guest OS you have and the snapshot functionality can be used for features like performing image level backups of the VMs without ever shutting them down.

What are the different types of virtualization?

Server Virtualization – consolidating multiple physical servers into virtual servers that run on a single physical server.

Application Virtualization – an application runs on another host from where it is installed in a variety of ways. It could be done by application streaming, desktop virtualization or VDI, or a VM package (like VMware ACE creates with a player). Microsoft Softgrid is an example of Application virtualization.

Presentation Virtualization – This is what Citrix Met frame (and the ICA protocol) as well as Microsoft Terminal Services (and RDP) are able to create. With presentation virtualization, an application actually runs on another host and all that you see on the client is the screen from where it is run.

Network Virtualization – with network virtualization, the network is “carved up” and can be used for multiple purposes such as running a protocol analyzer inside an Ethernet switch. Components of a virtual network could include NICs, switches, VLANs, network storage devices, virtual network containers, and network media.

Storage Virtualization – with storage virtualization, the disk/data storage for your data is consolidated to and managed by a virtual storage system. The servers connected to the storage system aren’t aware of where the data really is. Storage virtualization is sometimes described as “abstracting the logical storage from the physical storage.

What is the hardware version used in VMware ESXi 5.5?

Version 10

Below is the table showing the different version of hardware used in different VMware products along with their release version

Virtual Hardware Version	Products
10	ESXi 5.5, Fusion 6.x, Workstation 10.x, Player 6.x
9	ESXi 5.1, Fusion 5.x, Workstation 9.x, Player 5.x
8	ESXi 5.0, Fusion 4.x, Workstation 8.x, Player 4.x
7	ESXi/ESX 4.x, Fusion 2.x/3.x Workstation 6.5.x/7.x,Player 3.x
6	Workstation 6.0.x
4	ACE 2.x, ESX 3.x, Fusion 1.x, Player 2.x
3 and 4	ACE 1.x, Player 1.x, Server 1.x, Workstation 5.x, Workstation 4.x
3	ESX 2.x, GSX Server 3.x

What is the difference between vSphere Client and vSphere web client ?

vSphere Client is traditional utility which provides user interface to vCenter server. But from VMware vSphere 5 onwards,vSphere web client   is a primary interface to manage vCenter server.For vSphere client, you need install small utility .But vSphere Web client doen’t require any software. You can directly connect using web browser.But still VUM is managed through vSphere Client .

What are the features included in VMware vSphere 5.5 ?

• vSphere High Availabitliy (HA)
• vSphere Fault Tolerance
• vSphere vMotion
• vSphere Storage vMotion
• vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
• virtual SAN (VSAN)
• Flash Read Cache
• Storage I/O Control
• Network I/O Control
• vSphere Replication