The Setup:
To start out, I upgraded VMware vCenter Server to version 4.x. After that was done, I created a new cluster and added all four new hosts to it. I then mapped all of the same LUNs to the new cluster that were already mapped to the old cluster. This allowed me to do a migration from the old cluster to the new without having to worry about storage migrations. Next, I created the new dvSwitch with all the same port groups as the old vSwitch. It was important to make sure all VLAN IDs were present. Finally, I powered off all virtual machines.

The Code
Now for the interesting part. I wrote a PowerShell script to automate the migration of the VMs from the old cluster to the new. At the same time, it looks at the vSwitches and maps them to their equivalent dvSwitch port group by looking for matching VLALN IDs. For example, if there is a vSwitch port group called “Monkey” with VLAN ID of 123, it will check the dvSwitch port groups and map that to whichever one also has VLAN ID 123.

# Generate a hash of dvSwitch port group VLAN IDs and names, using ID as key.
function CreateDVMap() {
        $vlanmap = @{}
        $pgs = Get-VIew -ViewType DistributedVirtualPortgroup
        foreach ($pg in $pgs) {
                $vlan = $pg.Config.DefaultPortConfig.vlan.vlanid

                if ($vlan -and !$vlanmap.ContainsKey($vlan)) {
                        $vlanmap.Add($vlan, $pg.name)
                }
        }
        return $vlanmap
}
function MigrateVM($vm, $target, $dvMap) {
        # Is the virtual machine in the "Test Dev" resource pool?
        $resPool = Get-ResourcePool -VM $vm
        if ($resPool -and $resPool.Name.CompareTo("Test Dev") -eq 0) {
                $TestDev = $true
        } else {
                $TestDev = $false
        }

        $newnetnames = @()
        Write-Host "Migrating VM", $vm.Name

        # Translate the vSwitch PG of each NIC to the equivalent dvSwitch PG
        foreach ($nic in $vm.NetworkAdapters) {
                Write-Host $nic.name -ForegroundColor Blue
                Write-Host $nic.NetworkName -ForegroundColor Green
                $vlanid = (Get-VirtualPortGroup -Name $nic.NetworkName -VMHost $vm.Host).VlanId
                Write-Host "VLAN ID is" $vlanid
                $newnetnames += $dvMap.get_item($vlanid)
        }

        $newvm = Move-VM -VM $vm -Destination $target

        if ($TestDev) {
                # If it is a Test/Dev VM, move it to the new resource pool
                $rp = Get-ResourcePool -Location $newvm.host.parent -Name "Test Dev"
                $newvm = Move-VM -vm $newvm -Destination $rp
        }

        # Now, set all the NICs to their new dvSwitch port group
        $i = 0
        foreach ($nic in $newvm.NetworkAdapters) {
                Set-NetworkAdapter -NetworkAdapter $nic -NetworkName $newnetnames[$i++] -Confirm:$false
        }
}
# Connect to the vCenter Server
$vihost = Connect-VIServer "vCenter-Server-Hostname"

# Target host in the new cluster to deposit all VMs on
$targetHost = Get-VMHost "Some-Hostname-Here"

# Generate a hash of all dvSwitch PGs
$vlanmap = CreateDVMap

# Get a list of all VMs in "Production cluster
$vmlist = Get-VM -Location (Get-Cluster "Production") | Where { $_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOff" } | Select "Name"

# Iterate through the VMs and migrate them
foreach ($vmname in $vmlist) {
        $vm = Get-VM $vmname.name
        MigrateVM $vm $targetHost $vlanmap
}
Disconnect-VIServer $vihost -Confirm:$false

Despite the slowness problems, there were other things I was missing by using a shared hosting provider. For one, I was very limited in the amount of tweaking  I could do. This is partly because of the ban on background processes, but also because I didn’t have administrative access. This meant I couldn’t try different web servers, PHP modules, change MySQL cache configurations, and all that good stuff. You know, all that stuff that normal people don’t care about as long as stuff works.

Well, I’ve now made the jump to a virtual server hosted by Linode! Linode provides a virtual server in the cloud running Linux. They leverage the Xen hypervisor to do this, and you can run pretty much any Linux distribution you want.

So far, my Linode server has these specs:

• 512MB RAM
• 20GB storage
• 200GB transfer/month
• Debian GNU/Linux 6 (64-bit)

Thinking that the last guy just probably put in a $1 and walked away, I typed a random code. Plunk! I got some Ruffles. Now I figured maybe the last guy put in a $5, so I tried a few more codes. Keep in mind that I have extremely poor eyesight, and I couldn’t see anywhere where it showed how much money was on tab already. Finally, I came to the conclusion that it was totally broken.

Until I could figure out who to notify, I made a sign:

In the beginning, there was Geocities. Back in those days, GeoCities websites were broken down into “cities” and addresses. For example, a URL may have looked something like http://www.geocities.com/broadway/1138. My first website was somewhere under /broadway/. I believe I used a GeoCities tool to generate the HTML. Later, for some reason I don’t remember, I relocated to /SiliconValley/. By that point, I had started tinkering with HTML and created my website with some shareware website authoring tool for Windows 3.1, though mainly writing my own HTML. This was back before CSS, kids.

Time passed. I learned Linux. I bought a domain or eight. By this point, I had learned PHP. I created a new website and self-hosted it on my Linux desktop at home.  It used a mixture of HTML and PHP, though it was all within the same file. Eventually, I moved to FreeBSD and the website moved as well. Over time, I added some CSS into the page. I also migrated towards XHTML, I think. This page hung around for quite a while, and was only replace in the last year or two.

Next up, Drupal. I got a web hosting provider to host my website. I deployed on Drupal 6 and tweaked it over time. Drupal is very complicated, so it kept me busy customizing things to my liking. When Drupal 7 was in beta, I migrated over to it and pretty much had to start all over again. While Drupal is highly customizable, it ended up burning me out. It was just too big and unwieldy. So, I experimented with Joomla, concrete5, WordPress, and a pile of other CMSes.

And finally, to the point! After all that experimentation, I have decided to stick with WordPress for now. So, I’ve redone my website for yet another time. This time, WordPress. I am liking it so far, but we’ll see how it goes. If you have any WordPress tips, please send them my way.