HP CloudSystem Matrix 1.x White Paper | Page 13
Creating Windows Virtual Machine images for use with ESXi compute clusters in HP CloudSystem
Step 7: Set required VMware image properties with VMware tools
CloudSystem supports two VMDK formats: flat and sparse.
•
Flat files are generally larger and slower to upload. They consume more storage than a sparse VMDK. To prepare a flat
image, you must use vmkfstools with -d eagerzeroedthick. Unlike a sparse image, you do not have to set a
specific flat property for use with CloudSystem.
IMPORTANT: In flat files, you must use the eagerzeroed thick option with vmkfstools.
•
Sparse images are smaller, which improves upload times and storage consumption. To prepare a sparse image, you
must use vmware-vdiskmanager. To work properly, a sparse file must have a property set in Glance to indicate that it is
sparse before it is loaded into CloudSystem. This property is covered in step 8.
IMPORTANT: In sparse files, you must use the ‘-t 0’ option with vmwre-vdiskmanager.
When choosing between the sparse or flat formats, keep in mind that at launch a sparse file is expanded, which could
cause an additional initial delay the first time it is used. Flat images do not have this delay. The image that is cached on
the ESX hosts after the initial use is the expanded file, which is the cause of the one-time delay.
Preparing a Flat format VMDK
You can prepare a flat VMDK on the ESXi server in your development environment. In order to log on to an SSH session and run
vmkfstools, you must enable SSH access to the server.
1. Enable SSH access on the ESXi server.
a. In VMware vSphere Client, select the ESXi host where you are preparing the image.
b. Enable the ESXi SSH shell access by selecting the following options in Configuration
→Security:
i.
Services
→Properties→SSH should be set to running
ii.
Firewall
→Properties→Required Services, Secure Shell, SSH Server should be enabled.
2. Open an SSH shell to the ESXi server where the image is being prepared.
3. Change directory to the datastore where the image is stored.
4. Run the following command to review the image size:
# ls –l
5. Use the vmkfstools to set eagerzeroedthick :
vmkfstools -i <OriginalImage>.vmdk <NewImage>.vmdk -d eagerzeroedthick
Preparing a Sparse format VMDK
To set the required sparse properties for a sparse VMDK, you must use the vmware-vdiskmanager tool.
1. Download and Install vmware-vdiskmanager on a Windows server.
The Virtual Disk Manager Utility is available with a VMware workstation or you can download it separately as a Virtual
Disk Development Kit (VDDK).
VDDK is available for download at https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vddk/.
The Virtual Disk Manager User Guide is available at http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/
topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vddk_disk_utils.pdf.
2. Copy the image VMDK from the development ESXi server to the Windows server and examine the size of the file.
3. From the Windows server, run the VMware-vdiskmanager tool:
Vmware-vdiskmanager –r <OriginalImage>.vmdk –t 0 <NewImage>.vmdk
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