Cisco Unified Communications – Home Lab (VMWare Details)

VMWare virtual machines have become the de-facto standard way of running lab environments with Cisco Unified Communications Manager. This can be uncomfortable for someone who has not dealt with virtual machines, but the learning curve is not very great. This brief tutorial will help you setup VMWare. Throughout this article, I will be assuming that you will be working with a VMWare image that someone has created for you. This blog will not teach you how to create your own virtual machines and the blog will assume that you are running either VMWare workstation or server. Recall that VMWare server is a downloadable program that will not cost you anything to permanently demo, but VMWare workstation must be purchased. Launch the VMWare console. You may be prompted with a dialog window in which you can attach to a VMWare server. If prompted, choose the local option to connect to your local VMWare service. Choose the File > Open option from the Windows menu and point VMware to the drive location of your virtual machine. The file type will default to look for a *.vmx or *.vmtm file, but there are more options available from the Files of Type drop down menu. I have a few virtual machines on my local hard drive, but I frequently run virtual machines off of my USB 2.0 connected 250GB Western Digital hard drive. Virtual machines run very well from flash and external hard drives. I have been told that virtual machines have better performance running on external devices due to disk I/O. Once your virtual machine is in VMWare, you will have all of the settings created by the last person who ran the virtual machine you’re playing with. In the VMWare server or workstation 6.x console, you should see the settings for Memory, Hard Disc, CD-ROM, Ethernet, USB Controller, Sound Adaptor, Display, and Processors. If you do not see these options, you can go into your virtual machine settings by choosing VM > Settings (or press Ctrl + D). If the virtual machine displays State: Suspended, the last person running VMWare suspended the virtual machine. This is important because you cannot tune the settings of a suspended virtual machine without properly shutting down the virtual machine. If the virtual machine was created with a memory allocation of 2048MB and you only have 2GB of DRAM on your machine, starting the virtual machine will probably crash the PC you’re running on. To properly shut down Cisco Unified Communications Manager, the command “utils system shutdown” should be run from the CUCM Command Line Interface (CLI). CUCM virtual machines should not be abruptly stopped using the square stop button that you will see in the VMWare console. When CUCM has completely shutdown, the VMWare console will display “Power down.” The virtual machine must be stopped at this point to tune hardware settings. Click the square stop button or VM > Power > Shut Down Guest, or Ctrl +E. When virtual machines are loaded on the VMWare console, there will tabs in VMWare with a brief name for each VM. The name of the VM can be changed by accessing the VMWare settings. The settings are available by right clicking the VM tab and choosing settings, VMWare menu (VM > settings), or Ctrl + D. In the VMWare settings, click the Options tab and change the Virtual Machine Name. Click the Hardware tab again so we can get back to tuning the virtual machine’s memory settings. The next blog will continue the VMWare hardware tuning lesson.