VMware Converter Slow!

KB ID 0001584

Problem

I was P2Ving a server for a client this week. I did a ‘trial run’ just to make sure everything would be OK, and got this;

Yes, that says 13 days and 29 minutes! Suddenly doing this at 1700hrs on a Friday became a moot point! (Note: I was using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone version 6.2)

Solution

At first I assumed this was a network problem, so I moved everything onto the same Gigabit switch, and made sure all the NICs were connected at 1Gbps. Still no improvement. I then shut down as many services on the source machine as I could, still it was terribly slow 🙁

Firstly, make sure Concurrent Tasks, and Connections per Task are set to ‘Maximum’.

Then locate the converter-worker.xml file and edit it;

Usually located at “C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone

Note: ProgramData is, (by default) a hidden folder!

Locate the section, <useSsl>true</useSsl>, change it to <useSsl>false</useSsl> then save and exit the file.

Then restart the ‘VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Worker‘ service.

Boom! That’s better.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Exchange – Slow Shutdown and Reboot on a Domain Controller

 

KB ID 0000565 

Problem

To be fair Microsoft recommend that you DO NOT install Exchange on a domain controller. Not only does it cause quite a performance hit on the server, but because of the way services are stopped on the server at shutdown time, the Exchange services take AGES to stop (In fact they end up timing out).

Quite how this explains SBS (Which is a domain controller with Exchange on it) I’m not really sure, perhaps because it’s limited to 75 users Microsoft think that’s OK? But you will still come across Exchange on Domain controllers. I’ve even seen people promote Exchange servers to be domain controllers to fix replication problems. Also If you are in a test environment having one server is more sensible than two (All my test Exchange boxes are domain controllers to save space).

Solution

You can of course manually stop all the Exchange services every time you want to reboot or shutdown. That’s fine in principle but every time you forget you will have annoyed users asking how long it’s going to be down for.

To save that happening I’ve got a script that puts a shutdown shortcut on your desktop (or in the Quick Launch bar if your running on Windows Server 2003). There’s a different one for each version of Exchange, 2010, 2007, and 2003.

Exchange 2010 Slow Shutdown and Reboot on Domain controller.

1. Download this zip file > Extract it > Run the Install.bat file.

2. Then use the shortcut, that’s created to shutdown or reboot the server.

Exchange 2007 Slow Shutdown and Reboot on Domain controller.

1. Download this zip file > Extract it > Run the Install.bat file.

2. Then use the shortcut, that’s created to shutdown or reboot the server.

Exchange 2003 Slow Shutdown and Reboot on Domain controller.

1. Download this zip file > Extract it > Run the Install.bat file.

2. Then use the shortcut, that’s created to shutdown or reboot the server.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA