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St. Joan of Arc Comments
St. Joan of Arc is the patroness of soldiers and of France. On January 6, 1412, Joan of Arc was born to pious parents of the French peasant class, at the obscure village of Domremy, near the province of Lorraine. At a very early age, she heard voices: those of St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. At first the messages were personal and general. Then at last came the crowning order. In May, 1428, her voices "of St. Michael, St. ... Continue Reading
21 - 40 of 238 Comments
1 year ago
joan of arc is so coooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!!! Thank you soooooooooooooooooo much
2 years ago
This was honestly VERY useful! i had to do a report for my teacher at 'St. Elizabeth Ann Seton' school and this website made it a breeze! I wonder if this will be help again later in the year?
2 years ago
I have to say a big vinaka vakalevu[thank u in Fijian] to you, St.Joan of Arc. I am so glad that i am named after you as my confirmation name. You have been an inspiration in my life. Thank You. I'l never get tired of knowing more about You.
2 years ago
I love saint Joan of arc! she is my HERO!
2 years ago
Dear st.joan please help all the fallen solders amen
2 years ago
I chose,although I believe she chose me,as my Confirmation Saint,all through my life I have been aware of her presence when I have had difficulties ,she fought for what is right and paid the price with her life. She is a great example to us all..
2 years ago
i have a research paper to do on St. Joan. she is absolutely amazing. and inspiring.
2 years ago
I Loveeeeeeee Joan Of Arc I am the biggest fan of Joan of Arc I love it, love it. I Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Joan Of Arc. Joan of Arc I'm your biggest fan in the universe I love you
2 years ago
I love this Saint. I decided to pick her for my confirmation name and I just can't get enough of her. She is so inspirational and courageous and I would like to be like her one day.
2 years ago
she is absolutely awesome saint that i have ever heard and i am so thankful for my parents to give me her name as my name..^_~
2 years ago
The French should've helped her because she did help the French to reclaim the thrown from the English.
2 years ago
st joan is of the hook this website is awesome! im definetly coming back!
posted from school
2 years ago
My Dearest Joan of Arc, where do I begin to thank you for the countless blessings and graces the Risen Lord showered me from my early life. My life is a living testimony to your powerful prayers and unfailing intercession from your place in Heaven. I look forward to the future with the confidence of knowing that you are at my side encouraging me to face every obsticle with faith and courage, just as you did in every battle. My Dear Maiden of France, tonight I appeal to you for help to save my close friend from commiting suicide. Let me put this matter in perspective by explaining briefly his background. Timmy was born on Sunday, 4th April 1976, to a Finnish family who arrived in Sydney in 1970 from Finland to start a new life in Australia. Timmy's father was a hopeless alcoholic who drank all his wages in filthy pubs and his mother a sober and hardworking woman struggling to feed her 6 children on a small salary working as a housecleaner for a wealthy but kind old Jewish lady in the affluent Sydney suburb of Elizabeth Bay. Life was far from cozy and each day was a battle to get by on pittance. Timmy was 16 years old when his elder brother, a hopeless heroin addict, talked him into smoking heroin telling Timmy that he won't get addicted because it was same as smoking marijuana. Well, it didn't take long for Timmy to develop a $400 a day heroin habit. Timmy lived like a wild animal for many years and he was even inprisoned for a few years. His family funded his drug treatment and in 2004 he began his new life completely free from heroin. Timmy had a well paid job, played sport and restored classic BMW cars 1962-1965 series with great success, and everything looked rosy and life was fantastic. Timmy met and fell madly in love 13 months ago with a stunning young girl (22 years old) and a heroin addict. Timmy now sleeps on public park benches being frequently assaulted by drunk louts and he's soliciting gold coins from pedestrians and patrons in pubs. My Dear Joan, I beg you to storm Heaven to preven Timmy from commiting suicide as he's already tried twice and both times he was saved by ambulence. May the Risen Lord rescue Timmy from his heroin HELL and restore him to his terrified and torn family. AMEN
2 years ago
I think that this saint is great but I like Saint Rebecca (Rafqa). She was a blind paralytic.
2 years ago
thanx for info.... its very useful for me.........
saint joan is the best n loving
character of dis play.......
2 years ago
i not freaked out to give my report anymore i going to get an a+ thankes so so much catholic saints . org
2 years ago
I may not be a follower of the Catholic faith, but this strong child of Christ makes me feel blessed everytime I read her story. She was my baby sister's age when she started hearing the Saints words and I can't imagine the faith she had in our maker that she would give her life so diligently to better honor him and to do his work to the best of her ability. I am happy that I choose such a worthy woman of God to right my research paper on. I hope that in this paper I will do right by the Lord in writing of his and St. Joan of Arc's success to my full potential. I know that the Catholic and the Prodestant faith don't always see eye to eye, but I hope that we can all agree that surely this woman was filled with God's holy fire, and that she is watching down from the heavens above with all our loved ones who made it to the better place and the pearly gates.
3 years ago
Joan of Arc is such an inspiring Saint. I did a report in 4th grade (if I recall correctly) and she was the Saint I chose. Now, 4 years later she is my Saint for Confirmation. :) Thank you for all of the useful information!
3 years ago
Well she is a very intresting peson and also compleceted.Ugh! but i am very happy to be studying him.
3 years ago
i love everything about this saint if i could be any saint it would be saint joan of arc my project is do this monday on this saint and i cant wait to tell my class about it im in 4 grade at st andrews and mrs.zold will give me a A+ :)Ekkkkkkkkkkk!
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Blood Pact: Be the boss of your mods
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is using old screenshots because they're pretty.
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About a month ago I posted an article titled The vMotion Reality. In that article, I challenged the assertion that vMotion was a myth, not widely implemented in data centers today due to networking complexity and networking limitations.
In a recent comment to that article, a reader again mentions networking limitations—in this instance, the realistic limits of a large Layer 2 broadcast domain—as a gating factor for vMotion and limiting its "practical use" in today's data centers. Based on the original article's assertions and the arguments found in this comment, I'm beginning to believe that a lot of people have a basic misunderstanding of the Layer 2 adjacency requirements for vMotion and what that really means. In this post, I'm going to discuss vMotion's Layer 2 requirements and how they interact (and don't interact) with other VMware networking functionality. My hope is that this article will provide a greater understanding of this topic.
First, I'd like to use a diagram to help explain what we're discussing here. In the diagram below, there is a single ESX/ESXi host with a management interface, a vMotion interface, and a couple of network interfaces dedicated to virtual machine (VM) traffic.
As you can see from this highly-simplified diagram, there are three basic types of network interfaces that ESX/ESXi uses: management interfaces, VMkernel interfaces, and VM networking interfaces. Each of them is configured separately and, in many configurations, quite differently.
For example, the management interface (in VMware ESX this is the Service Console interface, in VMware ESXi this is a separate instance of a VMkernel interface) is typically configured to connect to an access port with access to a single VLAN. In Cisco switch configurations, the interface configuration would look something like this:
interface GigabitEthernet 1/1
switchport mode access
switchport access vlan 27
spanning-tree portfast
There might be other commands present, but these are the basic recommended settings. This makes the management interfaces on an ESX/ESXi host act, look, feel, and behave just exactly like the network interfaces on pretty much every other system in the data center. Although VMware HA/DRS cluster design considerations might lead you toward certain Layer 2 boundaries, there's nothing stopping you from putting management interfaces from different VMware ESX/ESXi hosts in different Layer 3 VLANs and still conducting vMotion operations between them.
So, if it's not the management interfaces that are gating the practicality of vMotion in today's data centers, it must be the VM networking interfaces, right? Not exactly. Although the voices speaking up against vMotion in this online discussion often cite Layer 3 VLAN concerns as the primary problem with vMotion—stating, rightfully so, that the IP address of a migrated virtual machine cannot and should not change—these individuals are overlooking the recommended configuration for VM networking interfaces in a VMware ESX/ESXi environment.
Physical network interfaces in a VMware ESX/ESXi host that will be used for VM networking traffic are most commonly configured to act as 802.1Q VLAN trunks. For example, the Cisco switch configuration for a port connected to a network interface being used for VM networking traffic would look something like this:
interface GigabitEthernet1/10
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
switchport trunk allowed vlan 1-499
switchport trunk native vlan 499
spanning-tree portfast trunk
As before, some commands might be missing or some additional commands might be present, but this gives you the basic configuration. In this configuration, the VM networking interfaces are actually capable of supporting multiple VLANs simultaneously. (More information on the configuration of VLANs with VMware ESX/ESXi can be found in this aging but still very applicable article.)
In practical use what this means is that any given VMware ESX/ESXi host could have VMs running on it that exist on a completely different and separate VLAN than the management interface. In fact, any given VMware ESX/ESXi host might have multiple VMs running across multiple separate and distinct VLANs. And as long as the ESX/ESXi hosts are properly configured to support the same VLANs, you can easily vMotion VMs between ESX/ESXi hosts when those VMs are in different VLANs. So, the net effect is that ESX/ESXi can easily support multiple VLANs at the same time for VM networking traffic, and this means that vMotion's practical use isn't gated by some inherent limitation of the VM networking interfaces themselves.
Where in the world, then, does this Layer 2 adjacency thing keep coming from? If it's not management interfaces (it isn't), and it's not VM networking interfaces (it isn't), then what is it? It's the VMkernel interface that is configured to support vMotion. In order to vMotion a VM from one ESX/ESXi host to another, each host's vMotion-enabled VMkernel interface has to be in the same IP subnet (i.e., in the same Layer 2 VLAN or broadcast domain). Going back to Cisco switch configurations, a vMotion-enabled VMkernel port will be configured very much like a management interface:
interface GigabitEthernet 1/5
switchport mode access
switchport access vlan 37
spanning-tree portfast
This means that the vMotion-enabled VMkernel port is just an access port (no 802.1Q trunking) in a single VLAN.
Is this really a limitation on the practical use of vMotion? Hardly. In my initial rebuttal of the claims against vMotion, I pointed out that because it is only the VMkernel interface that must share Layer 2 adjacency, all this really means is that a vMotion domain is limited to the number of vMotion-enabled VMkernel interfaces you can put into a single Layer 2 VLAN/broadcast domain. VMs are unaffected, as you saw earlier, as long as the VM networking interfaces are correctly configured to support the appropriate VLAN tags, and the management interfaces do not, generally speaking, have any significant impact.
Factoring in the consolidation ratio, as I did in my earlier post, and you'll see that it's possible to support very large numbers of VMs spread across as many different VLANs as you want with a small number of ESX/ESXi hosts. Consider 200 ESX/ESXi hosts—whose vMotion-enabled VMkernel interfaces would have to share a broadcast domain—with a consolidation ratio of 12:1. That's 2,400 VMs that can be supported across as many different VLANs simultaneously as we care to configure. Do you want 400 of those VMs in one VLAN while 300 are in a different VLAN? No problem, you only need to configure the physical switches and the virtual switches appropriately.
Let's summarize the key points here:
- Only the vMotion-enabled VMkernel interface needs to have Layer 2 adjacency within a data center.
- Neither management interfaces nor VM networking interfaces require Layer 2 adjacency.
- VM networking interfaces are easily capable of supporting multiple VLANs at the same time.
- When the VM networking interfaces on multiple ESX/ESXi hosts are identically configured, VMs on different VLANs can be migrated with no network disruption even though the ESX/ESXi hosts themselves might all be in the same VLAN.
- Consolidation ratios multiply the number of VMs that can be supported with Layer 2-adjacent vMotion interfaces.
Based on this information, I hope it's clearer that vMotion is, in fact, quite practical for today's data centers. Yes, there are design considerations that come into play, especially when it comes to long-distance vMotion (which requires stretched VLANs between multiple sites). However, this is still an emerging use case; the far broader use case is within a single data center. Within a single data center, all the key points I provided to you apply, and there is no practical restriction to leveraging vMotion.
If you still disagree (or even if you agree!), feel free to speak up in the comments. Courteous and professional comments (with full disclosure, where applicable) are always welcome.
Tags: Cisco, Networking, Virtualization, VLAN, VMotion, VMware
39 comments
vMotion works great, but having a network background before I got into VMware really helped in understanding how the whole process works. It's also a best practice to really give vMotion it's own physical Network interface. Not to say you can't share, but giving it dedicated and isolated bandwidth helps in troubleshooting processes later.
I've also found it works great to use a single switch for the Conole port and the vMotion port and to assign two Physical nics but use them in Active/standby. Then the console and the vMotion ports get dedicated bandwidth while also attaining redundancy in the case of failover. The more complex your design gets, the more you can expand it as well.
I really don't understand where this push back against vMotion comes from. In my experience, the only major reason my clients have for not using vMotion is the cost of the Enterprise license. The networking requirements of vMotion are simple and straightforward, and even if you limit yourself to a /24 subnet for the vMotion interfaces that's still 255 ESX servers. And since it's a non routed subnet you can choose a class A if you really want to.
Hi Scott,
Excellent Article. I have configured our ESX servers in the same way and have had no issues with regards to L2/L3 problems. If one does follow VMware good practices, one wouldn't necessarily encounter issues. In fact is a very secure way of doing it, especialy for the vMotion interfaces.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: We have around 170 VMs spread along 13 hosts, and several _hundred_ VLANs in our infrastructure. Each vSphere host typically has 40 or 50 VLANs trunked to each vSwitch, and each host usually has two vSwitches. Management VLAN is the same across every vSphere host. Migrating from one host to another works flawlessly for us, so long as the VLANs are trunked to each host (which we accomplish & maintain consistency via host profiles.)
I honestly don't know why the proposition that vmotions are a myth is given any respect. If you have to do long-distance vmotions, then sure, you have to consider a couple of things (like expanding your VLANs.) But that is a fairly trivial thing to keep in mind.
Scott, I think the issues people have with layer 2 are mostly around the VLAN limitations of the networking equipment and not anything related to vMotion/VMware.
Take your example, if you wanted any VM to be run on any host then 2400 VLANs need to span across enough access switches to connect the 200 physical servers. The spanning tree protocol you are running needs to support 2400 VLANs. The upstream router(s) and/or firewall(s) need to support 2400 VLANs.
You may also run into congestion issues if intra-VLAN traffic is no longer contained at the access layer and must traverse the aggregation layer. The more physical hosts, the thinner it is possible to spread a VLANs worth of hosts and the potential problems grow.
Scott, you are right in that the number of VLANs to support that many VMs may be, and probably is, a lot lower. However, my issues still stand as a lot of the defaults, at least in my experience with Cisco (YMMV), are in the low hundreds of VLANs. Mostly these can be raised with simple variable changes or possibly larger configuration changes (moving from RPVST to MST, speaking from personal experience).
As such they should not be seen as hard limits but more issues that need to be addressed at the planning stage if they are not to cause scaling issues later.
To me, this discussion seems to be less of a technical one, and more of an issue with many VM specialists having weak understanding of networks, their design, requirements, and technologies. It's so overblown specifically because it's presented as an issue for larger organizations, and it is such large organizations where we typically find narrow specialists each working on their own one thing. Their VM people don't understand how networks work, and their network people don't know what VMs need. And of course they can't educate each other, because they don't understand each other.
On the other hand, if you look at a small company with a handful of ESX hosts, you're likely to find just a couple of guys, who do everything: network, storage, VMs, guest OS, etc. They will quickly recognize a red herring, but nobody is going to ask their opinion, since to the GigaOm reporter they would seem to have no relevant experience.
Good point from sysadmin.
I come from a background of being both a network guy and a systems guy. I make it a point to bridge the gap between the two since both seem to have fundamental misunderstandings of each other or more often than not fear change.
For example, in an environment with say 500 VLANs, many (say 75%) might be for client endpoints and all of the x86 servers can be found in maybe 30 or so VLANs. The network guy will argue that VMware needs to support 500 VLANs when the actual truth might be well under 10% of that. Understanding that a client would access the server through the same plumbing it always has (it just so happens that the edge switch the VM plugs into is virtual) helps these discussions go a long way.
4.1 increases the number of concurrent VMs that can be vMotion'ed over a 10Gb uplink from 2 to 8 and it also increases the maximum throughput from just over 2Gb to over 8Gb.
We have been testing the vMotion enhancements along with the new Network I/O Control feature and we have seen significant performance improvements.
The vMotion bandwidth increase is very useful when using 10Gb uplinks that have not been limited to only a few gigs. For those concerned with vMotion taking to much bandwidth they can now use Network I/O Control to limit the bandwidth and set priorities to various traffic types. A cool new feature but under normal workloads I don't think we will see the need to chop up a 10Gb uplink. The question I always ask is since we are now doing switch-to-switch connections (physical to virtual switch), not server to switch anymore, why are we trying to implement QoS when we normally don't do it between switches now?
Two 10Gb uplinks without QoS features enabled seem to work for most ToR switches so what has changed?
10 to 20 gigs of outbound bandwidth across two 10Gb uplinks with 19.2Gbs of VM to VM traffic seems like a lot more bandwidth then what multiple 1Gb could ever dream of providing.
Use the new load-based teaming with wide open 10Gb pipes and we should have enough bandwidth and headroom for most installations out there and it is a much easier to setup then having to carve up the pipe with one tool and setup a bunch of QoS on the switch and OS with others.
Keep it simple, monitor it and then start moving the knobs when you really know you need it.
Wait a minute. I agree with what you're saying in this post, so I went back to read the comment on the previous post in order to try to understand what the real arguement against vMotion is here. Jeremy undoubtedly knows what he is talking about, though the arguement that "if the VLANs are not extended from Server Rm A to Server Rm B, you can't vMotion a VM between the two and have the IP remain the same" seem like a bit of a 'well duh' arguement. That's not a knock against Jeremy by any means, I believe someone above hit the nail on the head with the comment about networking guys and VMware guys not understanding each other and not communicating properly. Did the two of you have that sidebar afterall to discuss the VLAN sizing and distribution limits which would limit vMotion within the datacenter (or between datacenters for that matter)? I'd be interested to read more about that.
It seems that the key points here are his argument that 'most datacenters aren't set up that way', and your agruement that this is all possible 'with a properly configured network'. Both of which are valid, they are simply looking at the subject from different viewpoints. As for the original arguement that vMotion is not an operational reality today, has that guy not talked to anyone in the industry? Sure, there are sizing limitations to anything if you scale it out large enough. That doesn't mean it's not already being done in production enviromnets.
As virtualization becomes more dominant in the industry, we will see a shift in datacenter design which will provide a networking environment more conducive to VMs and VM mobility.
Yeah its a bit odd; it struck me as him trying to present a problem to some solution that may not yet exist.
Virtualization is pretty disruptive technology and anyone looking to seriously deploy it is going to make the necessary adjustments to their networking infrastructure to get the most bang for the buck.
Honestly the only inhibitor I really see causing a lot of my large customers any headaches is in the CMDB and contractual issues. The technology piece is already sorted out and working just fine.
Wow. Some great input From both VM guys and Network guys. Enough to blow most peoples brains out…mine included.
I feel that the major argument seems to stem from network links between different sites. Room A to Room B, Datacentre A to Datacentre B etc. It seems that the belief is that vMotion is dictating a "replace you routers between these sites with bridges or it won't work" approach. That creates the huge L2 network and the problems that go with it. Fact is, most networking gear now has the inteligence to "bridge" vLans, so only the necessary traffic hogs the site links.
No one (not VMWare anyway) said flatten your networks. They just said "make a link where needed".
Of course (to be Devil's Advocate), add in your "network cloud" provider and you might be pushing it to extend the vlans. Guess it keeps us in a job.
Brian: The simple answer to your question regarding QoS is that it is useful for hosting providers. You need to be able to limit your customers to what they are buying, or you'll be getting yourself into a lot of trouble when one customer is using all the resources.
Now regarding this vMotion post I think it is indeed an answer to a question that doesn't exist. Or rather, it is an answer to someone who doesn't know what they're doing. If you're a "VM guy" you need to have some networking clue. If you dont, hire a consultant!
Seriously though, go learn some networking if you don't understand how a VLAN or vMotion works, its pretty straight forward after all. Or are you going to teach networking 101 here Scott?
Scott, a nice job explaining the issues and scope of the considerations. I just have a few references for folks.
I second Martin W.'s call for the need for networking 101 for vmware administrators. Check out this free on-line course created by Juniper.
This is a nice reference design guide for the Vmware data center. See pages 13 and following for the vmotion issues:
And of course the High Availability section of the Vmware site nicely organizes what we need to know.
Filldeeuk nailed one of the two issues. It's the L2 extension, and and I would add, the local storage which has historically made vMotion infeasible outside a DC
Disregarding Vmware's SRM for a second, when u vMotion a VM it comes up on another ESX server with it's complete identity, including it's IP address [1] and expects the ESX server it's getting re incarnated on to have the same LUN mappings for storage [2]
Imagine if u attempt the above across in a different geographically located DC.
The company's network would need to intelligently be able to route traffic for this VM now to the 2nd DC, while still routing traffic to all the other IPs in the same network as the VM to the first DC. That's problem #1.
Problem 2 is what filldeeUk brought up. Extending layer2 across large distances can cause instability because of the legacy L2 bridging protocol (STP)'s inherent limitations (extremely chatty, incessant need to recalculate topology at the slightest change etc etc).
Problem 3 is the fact that your VM is now alive and kicking in DC2 but it's storage is all the back in DC1. U can imagine the issues with this. Latency throughput etc etc. (SRM, and a well engineered storage network can solve this problem by the way)
SRM cannot solve problem 1 and 2, short of changing your servers IP address (which may be an elegant enough solution if your app doesn't care about the IP)
Cisco's OTP technology working in conjunction with LISP solves problem 2 and 1 respectively. OTV, amongst other things, modifies the behavior of STP across long distance L2 domains and LISP pieces out the ID of the end host from that of the site and enabling more intelligence into the network to route more surgically.
Omer (FD: I work for Cisco)
I wanted to weigh in here as I think there is a misconception concerning vMotion requirements from a network perspective.
There are four network related requirements in order for vMotion to succeed. These are: (a) The L2 characteristics must be identical, (b) the ESX(i) hosts must be in the same "vSphere Datacenter", (c) the Port Group names must be identical, and (d) the storage used by the destination ESX(i) host must be accessible to the origin ESX(i) host.
Let me expand on each of these four items a bit. These requirements are the same for local vMotion within a single datacenter, Metro distance (~200 km) vMotion (such as a Cisco OTV, LISP, DCE or other L2 stretching solution) between two well-connected datacenters, or a Long distance vMotion solution, which utilizes WAN optimization technologies to overcome link speed, and latency issues between two geographically distant datacenters.
The first requirement is that the L2 characteristics of the network(s) to which the VM is/are connected must be the same (i.e. the IP address space, netmask, and Gateway must be the same). This might seem obvious but often I see folks who want to vMotion a VM from one location to another and are surprised that the VM can no longer connect to anything if the networks aren't configured the same. If the gateway device of the network to which the VM was connected in origin had 192.168.0.1 as its IP, but the gateway device to which the VM connects in destination has 192.168.0.254 as its IP, the VM will not be able to connect to anything outside of its L2 broadcast domain. Nothing magic here, it is just worth stating.
A successful vMotion does not require that the origin and destination networks actually are in the same L2 broadcast domain. There is no requirement to stretch the L2 broadcast domain. It doesn't hurt to stretch the L2 broadcast domain, but there are other time-tested solutions for addressing overlapping IP space issues. Omer is correct in identifying problem #1 as needing to intelligently direct network traffic to the vMotioned VM once it moves. This is a standard function of an Application Delivery Networking device.
The second requirement is that the esxhost-origin and esxhost-destination must in the same "vSphere Datacenter" construct. This is not a physical datacenter, but the grouping of ESX(i) clusters that constitute the logical boundary for vMotion.
The third requirement is that the virtual machine Port Group name(s), which the VM being vMotioned has defined on esxhost-origin, is/are exactly the same on esxhost-destination. (Notice that VLAN IDs were not mentioned. As long as the Port Groups are named identically the VM will have no problem recognizing the network to which its vNIC(s) are attached. For example, a VM that has a vNIC connected to the Port Group named "Web-Servers" at origin, could successful be vMotioned to destination as long as there was a Port Group named "Web-Servers". This is true even if the Port Group in origin was defined with a VLAN tag of 100, and the Port Group in destination was defined with a VLAN tag of 200.
The fourth requirement is that both ESX(i) servers each have access to shared storage, and esxhost-origin must also have access to the shared storage of esxhost-destination. (There is no requirement that the primary shared storage for esxhost-origin has to be the same primary storage for esxhost-destination.)
Notice that there is no requirement for the vMotion VMkernel interfaces of the ESX(i) hosts to have what was termed Layer 2 adjacency. The vMotion VMkernel interfaces are not required to be on the same subnet, VLAN, nor on the same L2 broadcast domain. The vMotion traffic on VMkernel interfaces is routable. IP-based storage traffic on VMkernel interfaces is also routable. Thus there are no L2 adjacency requirements for vMotion to succeed.
In short, if you can route the traffic from origin to destination and can do so faster than both the storage is changing, and the memory footprint of the VM is changing, then you can vMotion.
Paul Pindell (Full disclosure: I work for F5 Networks on VMware related solutions)
Hi Scot,
Great stuff, much appreciated.
Not sure where I heard this but I am pretty sure it was in a VMware event last year.
VMware published some data as to how many customer that bought VMware products were using VMware in production.
If I recall well VMware said 60% so not sure where this push back against vMotion comes from, but I might be wrong.
For what I have seen so far, vMotion was well developed in the environments I have seen until now. I believe that this percentage could be higher now .
Jose Maria Gonzalez from El blog de Virtualizacion en Español
I've searched for a requirement in the vSphere 4.0+ documentation that would speak to this L2 adjacency requirement directly, but have not found one. On pages 187 ff of the vSphere 4.0, 4.0 U1, admin guide the networking requirements are listed, and L2 adjacency is not mentioned. Also in the latest vSphere 4.1 Datacenter Administrator guide pages 211-12 the networking requirements are listed, and again there is no mention (for or against) of vMotion traffic being on the same L2 broadcast domain.
There is a new note in the DC admin guide that I am going to have to track down the reasoning that informs it. "NOTE You cannot migrate virtual machines that are attached to a virtual intranet with vMotion, even if the destination host has a virtual intranet configured with the same network label." (p. 212)
The concept "virtual intranet" is only used in this sentence within the guide. I believe it refers to the situation where a VM is connected to a vSwitch which does not have an external vNIC associated with the vSwitch.
Logically I cannot see any reason why the vmkernel interfaces should need to be on the same subnet, as long as the infrastructure can support the load. Obviously, doing a vmotion through a slow firewall is not a very good idea, but there are many examples of routing devices which add no significant latency or bottlenecks – such as the hardware routing in a cisco switch.
mind you, while I haven't tested this recently I seem to recall that you get a warning (but not an error) if you vmotion between two hosts where the vmkernel vmotion port group is named differently, but this is probably more a "heads up" to the admin in case he is in fact trying to move a VM through a (relatively) slow layer 3 device by mistake.
Also the whole "devices per vlan" discussion is pretty dumb imho. The problem with a large broadcast domain is mostly linked to the actual broadcast traffic cumulated by having a large number of "chatty" devices share a network. Since the vmkernel does not try to autodiscover anything, it only needs to send broadcasts when initiating an IP connection to a device whose MAC-address is not already known. This results in one or two "arp who-has" packets, and then is shuts back up again.
Sticking with that thought, let's assume that you configure a dedicated vlan for vmotion (which is a good practice in medium+ size installations anyhow). When do you get broadcasts? only whenever an ESX host is starting a vmotion and needs to map the target ESX' vmotion IP to a MAC address. Even if that host fails to respond you only get one broadcast every second or so, until the vmotion times out. So what's that? Maybe 30 broadcasts in as many seconds.
So I would think that you can stick a VERY large number of ESX hosts on the same subnet without incurring any significant overhead due to broadcast traffic. Probably a more relevant limit would be how large the mac-address-table on your switches can grow, but these days we are probably talking at least 4 digits.
Hello, I am a vSpecialist with EMC, and just saw this article and thought I'd share some information that is hopefully useful.
I received this feedback from the software developer at vmware who wrote VMotion, and it was in response to the question of whether or not to route VMotion traffic.
"This requirement dates back to the ESX 2.x days. Since 3.0, the vmotion vmkernel nic has been able to route traffic and thus you could have vmotion nics on different subnets. And I know a few customers do this. I'm pretty sure it's officially supported. I'm not sure if we have any official documentation on this though."
Just for clarification: what the developer sees as possible with the software and what tech support will support in the field are two different things. However, there appears to be nothing documenting routed VMotion traffic is unsupported.
I would suggest test the network to see if routing VMotion traffic shows acceptable performance, and proceed from there with implementing routed VMotion traffic or not.
Apologies it took my over a month to get back to your query on OTV/LISP, and in a way I'm glad I waited.
There is a detailed article on networkworld written by a peer in my team on this. The OTV/LISP topic is broached on page 5/6
Hi guys,
can someone explain once for all why L2 adjacency is required between the VMkernel interfaces of the source and destination ESX server? vMotion is happening leveraging a TCP session (port 8000), so what is the real reason why this traffic should not be routed? Is it merely a support issue on the VMware side or is there more about it?
Thanks in advance,
It's easy to believe that vMotion interfaces cannot be routed. Since the ESX/ESXi server only has one default gateway, and that gateway is (usually) used for the service console network, and the vMotion network is supposed to be separate, that leaves no gateway for the vMotion network, and therefor no routability. In practical fact, the vMotion network needs to be L2 adjacent _unless_ you can do some fiddling with static routes to make it routable. So it's not a formal requirement, it's a limitation of the design of the system that can be (clumsily) overcome.
I'm not a vmware person. Never configured it and never done
a vMotion ever. I dont think I have ever even see it done, so
pardon my ignorance. let me ask a stupid question…when one
performs a vmotion of a vm from one ESX host to another, isnt one
of the desired results to maintain the original IP address of the
VM's vNIC? If so, then how can it be that there are no L2 adjacency
requirements whatsoever when performing a vMotion? So, if ESX host
1 has a VM on it with an IP address of 10.1.1.1/32 on VLAN 10,
which is mapped to subnet 10.1.1.0/24, how can I keep the same IP
address if I move the VM to another ESX host that is connected to a
separate switch that doesnt support VLAN 10? Once again, pardon my
stupid question.
Sorry for my clumy writing. I meant the VM has an IP
address of 10.1.1.1/24 and VLAN 10 maps to subnet
Hello? Is this blog still active?
@Melvin – there are newer network technologies out there that allow an IP Subnet to exist in 2 different physical locations.
Note that an IP Subnet is not the same as a VLAN. Subnets are L3 and VLANs are Layer 2.
Thus the same subnet 10.1.1.0/24 could be available on 2 different "Broadcast Domains" which are L2 VLANs, one for each location.
I stumbled across this blog post rather late, but wanted to add something that is now more relevant for vSphere 5.
You might want to double the size of your IP Subnets used for vMotion if you are planning large vSphere clusters/Datacenters.
The reason being that in vSphere 5 there is a trick you can use to have more than 1 (2 in most cases) vmnic/vmkernel port being used for vMotion at the same time. So no longer is vMotion using 1 vmnic and the other is idle waiting for the first to fail. This is true even when a single VM is being Migrated.
But why would you need a bigger subnet?
The reason is to make this trick work, each vmnic now gets its own IP Address rather than a single IP address that fails back and forth.
So you effectively need 2x the IPs for the same number of hosts.
The details:
not satisfied
Being a beginner in vmware and ucs, I have small doubt.
What is limitation of changing mac address on vmotion?
Why do we create mac address pool in service profile?
Can someone explain this?
"By default, you cannot migrate virtual machines that are attached to a virtual intranet with vSphere vMotion, even if the destination host has a virtual intranet configured with the same network label."
Comments are now closed.


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Industry Leader Crestron Electronics, Inc. Joins SystemsPlus⢠Health Solutions
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CEDAR RAPIDS, IA, May 18, 2010 â Crestron Electronics, Inc. has joined the growing number of manufacturers and systems integrators participating in the SystemsPlus⢠Health Solutions insurance program. SystemsPlus Mutual Insurance Company (SPMIC) was created by NSCA in 2006 to provide a variety of insurance solutions and began offering health insurance in January 2009. The addition of Crestron brings the total number of lives in the program to more than 3,000, which allows for even greater discounts and stabilized rates at a time when healthcare reform is at the top of every businessâs concerns.
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Our sales staff enjoys one-on-one service to help our customers find the perfect piece for the loved one. We have two bench jewelers and offer onsite jewelry repair and custom design. We pride ourselves on being locally owned and being able to fulfill any of our customers' needs at our locations.
Glasscock Jewelry Corner is the Jewelry store that's been in your neighborhood for 30 years. Established in 1983, we have stores in Clinton and Warrensburg, Missouri. We have the largest selection of jewelry in west central Missouri. Our sales staff enjoys one-on-one service to help our customers find the perfect piece for the loved one. We have two bench jewelers and offer onsite jewelry repair and custom design. We pride ourselves on being locally owned and being able to fulfill any of our customers' needs at our locations.
Since 1976 the Leather Man has been the Lake of the Ozarks' source for leather apparel and accessories and biker gear.
The Leather Man is located on the historic Bagnell Dam Strip in Lake Ozark, Missouri.
Open Memorial Day to Labor Day, 9 a.m.-10 p.m.; spring and fall, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; winter, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
This Mennonite-owned store features hand-made sewing items and supplies, plus home-made games that are similar to games children played years ago. Many products are made by Mennonites or Amish; the shop also has clothing and shoes from name-brand manufacturers.
Unique Gift and Souvenir retail store located on Historic Route 66. We carry the largest selection of Route 66 merchandise in the Ozarks. Open 7 days a week from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., with plenty of free parking. Located at 24200 Route 66 (across from the I-44 Speedway) Lebanon, MO. Telephone 417-588-4466. We are also the headquarters for gourmet Route 66 Sodas featuring Route 66 Root Beer and Route 66 flavored soft drinks Orange, Lime, Cream Soda and Black Cherry, available in 12-ounce award-winning glass bottles, made with pure cane sugar.
Quilts, pot holders, place mats, pillow cases, aprons gifts and decor items handmade locally in the Mennonite community.
Aprons, dresses, bonnets, shirts, hand-painted brush-and-comb sets, little girls and boys smocks, and other unique gifts handmade locally in the Mennonite community.
A Mennonite-owned store featuring rustic furniture and decor, unique gifts, Amish popcorn, scented soaps, outdoor furniture, custom-made window dressings and curtains. Products made by local craftsmen. Also the manufacturing/sales center for Sunrise Portable Buildings.
For fun, unique gifts for every occasion, come to Smockingbird's in Fulton's historic Brick District! Gift lines sold include Chamilia, Your life your style, Mud Pie, Two's Company, Wind & Willow, Periwinkle, Nora Fleming and owner made hand smocked children's clothing.
Find materials for scrapbooking and card-making; the stamping materials are hand made on-site. Messages or logos are engraved on pieces of rubber, then mounted on hand-cut wooden blocks. Special-order stamps available; classes open for anyone who wants to learn how to make stamps or cards. Other crafting supplies are available at this Mennonite-owned business.
The Dam Bead Shoppe is your resource for beading supplies and unique gifts on the Bagnell Dam Strip.
We have beads of all types, including Czech glass, lampwork, vintage, Swarovski crystal, and fire-polished glass and silver alphabet blocks. Finishing touches include sterling, Bali & Hill Tribe Silver, Vermeil, jeweled clasps and much more.
We offer bead & jewelry making classes for the beginner just starting out and for the advanced students to experiment and expand their knowledge and experience.
Our hours vary by season. Please call to verify.
Unique full sales/service bicycle shop, we sell new Raleigh and Fuji bicycles and sell certified used bicycles of all brands. We also have parts and service for all makes. Credit cards accepted. Mennonite owned.
Locally grown produce, jams, jellies and pickles. Fresh eggs from free-range chickens. Spring plants, hanging baskets and flowers. Fall foliage decoration.
Specializing in bulk and repackaged dry and frozen foods. Features a deli with sandwiches made to order to eat in or take out. Locally grown, in-season produce. Outdoor wooden furniture, flowering plants and hanging baskets, in season. Directions and maps for self-guided Mennonite tours available.
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Out of 26 million Texans, you may have an idea to change the world. You may have had several ideas to change the world. But only a tiny minority of you pushed through the U.S. Patent office from application to successful patent. We've seen Texans change the world many times over. Jack Kilby did it with Texas Instruments in 1958 with the integrated circuit, causing the start of the digital revolution, which, in part, is why you can read these words over your electronic device.
Over the last few years, Texas Business has brought its feature: Texas Business Patent of the Day. This list is of the ones that were either extremely clever, odd or strange. One thing becomes apparent from these patents and the patent that runs daily in Texas Business—Texans have a unique mind set.
Though the history of the Corn Dog is disputed, the State Fair of Texas claims to have introduced the Corny Dog sometime between 1938 and 1942. As a paean to that invention that now sits in the freezer section of every grocery store in the southwest, here are the fried foods the State Fair of Texas has introduced, or tried to introduce, in the last seven years.
Dead Texas musicians live on every time you hear their songs. Their songs play everywhere, so the dead Texas musicians appear to be immortal. Here's the short list.
Don't get caught up with John Wayne religion. For one thing, he's not Texan. He's in some fine movies involving Texas, most notably The Searchers, but none of his movies can make the best cut of Texas movies. Here's the short list.
Tourist Traps. Some are absurdly large. All are monuments to the bizarre notions of the human spirit.
The short simple list.
Nothing to agonize over. Simply the best.
Texas Business reports: Lockheed Martin received another F-22 contract modification worth millions, the U.S. Department of Defense announced.
There have been calls to cease F-22 production, though the existing aircraft are still sustained. In April 2009, the DOD proposed to cease placing new orders, subject to Congressional approval, for a final procurement tally of 187 Raptors.
Congress passed budget bill versions without F-22 production funding in July 2009. President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 in October 2009, without funding for F-22 production.
Lockheed Martin of Fort Worth received a $7,926,738 contract modification which will procure the installation of a retrofit to add additional capability to the F-22 weapons and tactics trainers.
At this time, the entire amount has been obligated.
ASC/WWUK, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base of Ohio handled the contracting activity.
The Texas News Scrawl is a handy reference to stories Texas Business recommends from other news sources. Some of the stories that Texas Business currently suggests include: Texas regulators not aware of potential CFTC manipulation probe, Irving spends incentive dollars to lure two corporate headquarters and almost 2,000 jobs; Hotels, restaurant operators prep for record Final Four; Star-Telegram presses roll one last time; Robert Rodriguez breathes new life into an old vampire favorite; ClubCorp buys Prestonwood Country Club in Dallas and Plano; Office Depot overcharged Dallas by up to $3.6 million, city auditor finds; Texas power market monitor resigns amid unresolved reform debate; and more.


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Astoria Hotel, Kathmandu
Rooms: 20
Reviews - Astoria Hotel
- Age Group: 26 - 30
- From: United States
- Traveller type: Business Traveller
Read 5 additional reviews of Astoria Hotel at TripAdvisor.
Want to see more hotels? View all hotels in Kathmandu
Top Local Tips for Kathmandu
Tips for Travelers Paying by Credit Card For those of us who prefer to pay with plastic and keep only a small amount of cash handy, be sure to check the electricity blackout hours in Kathmandu. The hotel cannot run your credit card or even call for authorization if there is no electricity. The blackout hours have been consistently getting tougher and tougher to deal with as the hours increase. When the electricity is turned on the lines are jammed with all the other businesses trying to do banking etc. Best to plan ahead and learn the hours as they change daily and by area. Happy travels!!
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Curator, Ann Temkin: A photogram is made by placing an object on light sensitive paper, which is then exposed to light, creating a negative image of the object. Camera-less photographic images of subjects like leaves or flowers had been produced since the 1830s, but around 1922, almost simultaneously, artists such as El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray all began experimenting with photograms.
Curator, Leah Dickerman: The Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy embraced photograms as a way of making a new kind of abstract image, and his thinking about it came very much out of thinking of light, as painting's most essential subject matter.
When he became a faculty member at the Bauhaus, he set up something like a laboratory where he accumulated materials that allowed him to play with light—screens and tubes and mesh, things that were shiny and opaque and translucent, all of which would allow him to manipulate the absorption and reflection of light.
Even though they're tied to objects, photograms don't necessarily depict them. They're traces of their physical presence in the world. It's a sign of something that's been rather than making an image that looks like something else.


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I am taking my first accounting class this semester after changing my major. I really have no idea what is going to be like and I have heard it is pretty hard/boring. Does anyone have any hints or tips on things I would do before the class starts and such? I also do not mind numbers and spreadsheets, and I am pretty decent with a calculator.
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Home appliance and durable goods ownership is rising in Israel, despite a recession and fall in a standard of living.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, recently released figures indicate that one-third of Israeli households were connected to the Internet in 2003, up from 25.4 percent in 2002, and 17.7 percent had a DVD player, up from 11.9 percent a year earlier. About 70.6 percent of households subscribed to cable or satellite television.
The figures also indicated that 94.3 percent of Israeli households have washing machines; 74.8 percent own a microwave; 65.3 percent a vacuum cleaner; 61.5 percent an air-conditioner; 64.8 percent a VCR; 54.6 percent a PC; 33.9 percent a clothes dryer; and 31.1 percent a dishwasher.
Ownership distribution of appliances and durable goods according to income level also revealed wide differences between upper and lower income households. (Globes)
Back to Breaking News


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Tue, Dec 12, 2006
Aero-News learned Tuesday that
Boeing has been awarded a contract to launch two commercial
satellites in 2007 for Alcatel Alenia Space Italia, the prime
contractor of the Italian Space Agency.
Two Delta II expendable launch vehicles, both in the 7420-10
configuration, will each carry into orbit a COSMO-SkyMed spacecraft
from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA.
"Boeing Launch Services is honored to support these missions for
Alcatel Alenia Space, the European leader in satellite-based
solutions," said Boeing Launch Services Director Ken Heinly. "The
COSMO/SkyMed system is a critical mission for Italian science,
commerce and security, and the Delta II was selected for its
reliability, timeliness and affordability."
The Delta 7420-10 configuration is approximately 126 feet tall
and eight feet wide. It features a first stage and four strap-on
solid propellant rocket motors, an interstage and a second stage.
The first stage RS-27A main engine is manufactured by Pratt &
Whitney Rocketdyne, Canoga Park, Calif. The solid strap-on motors
are provided by Alliant Techsystems, Minneapolis, Minn. The main
engine and the four solid rocket motors deliver a total thrust of
485,000 pounds at liftoff.
An AJ10-118K engine, built by Aerojet in Sacramento, CA powers
the second stage. Ignited at altitude, the engine has a
vacuum-rated thrust of about 9,800 pounds.
COSMO-SkyMed is an end-to-end Earth observation dual-use (civil
and military) system composed of four satellites and ground
stations. The system will take radar imagery of the Earth using an
X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar instrument at the request of
institutional (including defense, civil and scientific) and
commercial users.
Boeing Launch Services will procure the launch vehicles and
related support from United Launch Alliance. As Aero-News reported,
the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture began operation on
December 1.
Boeing Launch Services is headquartered in Huntington Beach, CA
and is a business unit of the Command, Control and Communications
Networks operating division under Boeing Integrated Defense
Airborne 12.19.14: Falcon 8X Unveiled, Sporty's 172LITE, Bizarre CA AvGas Lawsuit Settled
Aero-TV: Redbird's Roger Sharp -- Pushing The Aero-Educational Envelope
Airborne 12.17.14: Evergreen Woes, Foolish Pilot Tricks, No 757 Replacement -- Yet
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For Counseling, Social Work and Marriage and Family Therapy you need authorization to test. When you have applied and the credentialing committee has determined that you meet all other requirements you will receive your authorization to test. The following contact numbers are available if you need to contact the testing entity for another reason such as obtaining an official score report for an exam previously taken or acquiring information regarding testing accommodations.
ICRC exam administered by: The Arizona Board for Certification of Addiction Counselors(ABCAC) can administer this exam to anyone not working within the Indian Health Service system. Contact Diane DeGeorge at (602) 251-8548
The Southwest Indian Substance Abuse Counselor Certification Board (SISACCB) can administer this exam to all individuals working within the Indian Health Service system. Contact Hedy Emery at (602) 254-3247
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Cognitive Rest Helps Speed Recovery After Concussion
January 7, 2014 — Immediately after a concussion, physicians recommend complete cognitive (thinking, processing) rest to help reduce a child's symptoms. A new study published in Pediatrics, supports the use of cognitive rest for treating concussion and shows that it helps speed recovery. Study author Dr. Naomi Brown, from the Division of Orthopedics at CHOP, discusses this important research in this article in The Atlantic.
To learn more about the implications of the study, read this Research in Action blog post: http://injury.research.chop.edu/blog/posts/empirical-evidence-supports-cognitive-rest-after-concussion#.UswnwxZSZOY.


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What's in the box: Waterproof Dry Tube Bag, Fully Removable Backpack Strap, Carabineer Clip and Instructions/Care Guide
OverBoard Waterproof Dry Tube Bag
Enjoy taking the OverBoard Waterproof Dry Tube Bag on your next weekend getaway. The multi-purpose OverBoard is a 100% waterproof dry bag (Class 3). If this product is drop in the water, it will float safely. The dry tube bag is suitable for quick submersion. This bag protects your contents from dust, sand, dirt and water. The durable and heavy-duty bag is from 600D nylon-coated PVC tarpaulin, strong enough to last a lifetime. This bag is easy to clean, as all you have to do is wipe it. The functional bag is easy to store away, when you aren t using it. Have tons of fun on your weekend trip using the OverBoard Waterproof Dry Tube Bag.


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Summertime might be over, but vacation time is just getting started. For many golf and resort markets, the first half of 2013 showed leaps and bounds in high-end activity, with some regions reporting increases as high as 50 percent compared to last year.
The opportunities each resort town offers — from boating on the Intracoastal Waterway to putting in the mountains of Colorado — combined with today's ease of mobility has brought a wave of buyers into the second-home market. From coast to coast and even in parts of Mexico, these destination cities are thriving, and not just in their peak seasons, as more and more people find ways to make the most out of their vacation homes.
Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale's luxury market is strengthening "almost weekly" this year, says Julie Jones of Premier Estate Properties, noting that new construction is booming. Jones recently sold an oceanfront property for $5.5 million, adding there are plans to redevelop and renovate it into a $15 million estate.
"The demand is for premium land for development into luxury residences on the water and oceanfront," she says.
There's also a huge appeal for the avid boater, who can take larger vessels into Fort Lauderdale without any concern for shallow waters, says Niki Higgins of Seaside Properties Group at Douglas Elliman.
"A person with a big boat that draws more than eight feet of water can't take their boat to many places in Miami," Higgins explains. "The fact that Fort Lauderdale has canals and pointe lots with deep water is very appealing to boaters."
Fort Lauderdale's proximity to Miami is a huge draw for buyers who work full time, but still want a "relaxed, easy lifestyle," Higgins adds.
"People aren't slowing down; they're changing gears," she says. "[It's] a very relaxed, easygoing town. People can work, even if they're away from their office. If you need to go down to Miami for a business meeting, it's no big deal."
With Miami becoming a vibrant city, Higgins likes to think of Fort Lauderdale as the Greenwich, Conn., of the region. Jones agrees, describing Fort Lauderdale as a "cosmopolitan city" with much to offer.
"You have amazing, clean beaches, beautiful parks, great restaurants and shopping plus a thriving downtown," Jones says.
The grand re-opening of the Cordillera Golf Club, one of the area's premier courses, has led to "positive news" for the Vail Valley, according to Gina Dizon of Ron Byrne & Associates Real Estate.
"We're seeing improvement, a lack of inventory and various price points, and that will help support a stronger market," she reports. She adds that prices range from $1,100 to $1,200 per square foot, depending on the community.
While golfing is a huge attraction for summer residents, Vail Valley — which encompasses the communities of Beaver Creek, Arrowhead, Red Sky, Eagle Ranch and Cordillera — offers a year-round lifestyle to its second-home buyers, Dizon says.
"The summer attracts the golfers, but there is a huge cycling and mountain-biking community. In winter, you've got skiing [and] snowshoeing, plus performing arts, theater, music [and] culture," she says.
The area also attracts buyers from other big cities; the Vail Valley is "the most urban ski environment I've ever found," Dizon says.
"You don't have to drive hours to get to a source of entertainment. We think nothing of driving to Denver for the day," she adds.
The quiet town of Telluride and its equally peaceful neighbor, Mountain Village, is nothing short of heavenly for avid golfers. There's no heat, no stress and – perhaps best of all – gravity is on the golfer's side, explains George Harvey of The Harvey Team.
"Golfers love to come up and play in the cool mountain weather. And at this elevation, you can drive the ball farther," he says.
A little peace and quiet is another gift the area bestows. Approximately 90 percent of Telluride's market is the second-home buyer, who can escape the heat in the summer, take advantage of prime skiing in the winter — or perhaps do nothing but relax and unwind.
"Telluride is a little remote, a little harder to get to — that's one of our best qualities," Harvey says. "We don't have traffic jams, it's more peaceful and you can get your pulse rate down in just a couple of days."
Luxury in the Mountain Village community ranges from $1 million to $4 million, where the town of Telluride is closer to $1 million to $5 million, Harvey says. The home he's currently listing in Telluride is priced at $12 million and features a limitless view of Wilson Peak out its front window.
"In the summer, it's lush and green [and] dropdead gorgeous," Harvey says. "I ask my clients why they came here, and it's the natural beauty. People are awestruck by it."
Although it's one of many Colorado ski resorts, Aspen's unmatched land value and rich 125-year history make it a favorite among second-home buyers.
"It's mostly second homes and resort homes," says Brian Hazen of Coldwell Banker Mason Morse Real Estate. "People come for the skiing and stay for the summer. They spend a lot of time here — maybe more so than they do in their primary homes."
Recreation is a predominant part of residents' lives, Hazen says. A high-end home on one of the area's golf courses can fetch $3 million to $4 million; a ski-in/ski-out estate 10 steps from the Buttermilk ski lift can sell for nearly $5 million.
"It has world-class recreation opportunities," Hazen says. "You have four ski mountains, incredible mountain biking, fishing and rafting." Hazen adds that Aspen was the kickoff city for the 2013 USA Pro Challenge, a professional cycling race through the Colorado Rockies.
Land value in Aspen remains strong as well, Hazen says, noting the sale of the 67-acre Jigsaw Ranch for $41 million earlier this year.
"Eighty-five percent [of the area] is protected by U.S. Bureau of Land Management," he says. "It prevents a lot of density and sprawl, and puts a higher price on land value."
Jacksonville/St. Augustine
In the northeastern part of the Sunshine State, the forecast is more than promising for Linda Sherrer and Christy Budnick of Prudential Network Realty. Sherrer reports that business is up 47 percent over last year. In Jacksonville/St. Augustine, home of the PGA Tour, buyers flock to the greens.
"We have a lot of gated communities with golf surrounding them. At last count we had 67 golf courses in our area," Sherrer says.
Buyers are also attracted to the oceanfront, and activities such as boating and fishing — and they're also mostly looking for a primary home. The region is ideal for year-round living because the seasons are much more defined.
"You really can use your fireplace in the winter and the leaves really do change color," she says.
But waterfront living is not limited to the ocean here.
"We have the majestic St. Johns River flowing north and over three miles wide in sections, the beaches, and the Intracoastal Waterway," says Neil Avery of Watson Realty. "We have creeks like Black Creek and Julington Creek, which are as wide as many rivers. And there also are many lakes — like Doctors Lake — which are the jewels of our area."
Currently, Jacksonville and St. Augustine boast the state's lowest unemployment rate, 6.5 percent, which has driven considerable relocation business into the region.
"Relocation has picked up dramatically," Budnick says. "We have strong employment and the cost of living is inexpensive, especially given all the amenities. We're getting quite a few people from areas that we didn't draw from in the past."
The Keys
For the third year in a row, the number of sales and median prices are on the rise in the Keys, according to Doug Mayberry of the Doug Mayberry Team.
"Buyers love the independent character and laidback lifestyle," Mayberry says. "We're finding more and more people are attracted to this 'live and let live' attitude. As the current advertising campaign for the Florida Keys says, 'close to perfect, far from normal.'"
With its blue-green waters and plethora of water-related recreation, Key West easily lures buyers, Mayberry says.
In addition, two private communities, Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo and the village of Islamorada are prime markets for second, third or even fourth homes, says Russell Post of Russell Post Sotheby's International, because each offers world-class boating and fishing.
"Over 70 percent of the homes at Ocean Reef have dockage," he says. "In Islamorada, you have deep sea fishing, reef fishing, flat fishing and tarpon fishing. It's a fisherman's paradise."
Additionally, Ocean Reef Club offers its members two championship 18-hole golf courses. Since the Keys get very little rain, Ocean Reef has been making its own water to irrigate the greens since the 1970s. The outstanding quality hasn't gone unnoticed, Post says.
"I've played with a PGA professional who said they were the best greens he'd ever seen," Post says.
Homes in the Keys start around $300,000, but can be priced as high as $15 million.
Boca Raton
Boca Raton, Fla., has seen buyers seeking an equal mix of seasonal and primary homes, reports John List, broker/owner at Worth Avenue International Realty.
"The market for golf and resort homes is strengthening," he says. "Prices have been going up and recouping some of the decline of the past several years."
Perhaps known in the past as a primarily retirement- driven region, List counters that many communities in Boca Raton are bursting with family-oriented amenities. List is currently representing a lakefront estate in The Oaks, a gated community that offers the kind of lifestyle an entire family can enjoy.
"There's a tremendous amount of golf courses and country clubs," affirms Scott Agran of Lang Realty. "It lends itself to all sorts of activities, from golf to tennis, boating and polo."
Prices can easily go as high as $10 million or even exceed $20 million for a coveted waterfront estate, Agran says. These top-tier homes make it known that living in Boca Raton is "like living in paradise," he adds.
Santa Fe
Set foot in one of the classic adobe-style homes in the private community of Las Campanas and gaze out into the endless mountain vistas. Typically, that's all it takes for a prospective buyer to realize there's a reason why Santa Fe, N.M., is referred to as "the city different."
Chris Webster of Sotheby's International Realty, who has worked in the area for 40 years, can attest to the allure of Santa Fe, where the main amenity is simply "the lifestyle."
"There's extraordinary ambience and aesthetic," he says. "[You can] step outside and also step back in time, and there's a sense of timelessness that soothes the spirit."
At Las Campanas, residents have the freedom to renovate old homesites or build anew, Webster says. A common design element among the homes is the integration between indoors and outdoors.
"The ability to move from indoors to outdoors is common here. Many rooms have their own outside entrance where you can access the patio or garden," he says.
Aside from the great outdoors, residents can also enjoy Jack Nicklaus-designed golf courses, a spa, swimming, tennis, an impressive equestrian facility and fine dining.
"It's an amazing combination of culture. When a visitor comes here, they feel they've gone to a different country," Webster says.
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Nestled along the west coast of Mexico against the backdrop of the Sierra Madre Mountains, Puerto Vallarta is a natural haven for resort homes. And in 2013, the high-end market has "come back with a vengeance," says Brock Squire of Coldwell Banker La Costa Realty.
"In 2012, there were maybe one or two sales in Puerto Vallarta [in the high end]," Squire says. "So far this year, we've seen 14 to 15 $1 million-plus sales."
Squire also notes a shift in his buyers; four or five years ago, Americans led the way, but now it seems more evenly split between Americans, Canadians and Mexicans.
"The population pyramid [in Mexico] is so different from the rest of North America. We're seeing a much wealthier, better-educated customer in the Mexican market here than in the past," he says. "We're starting to see a younger crowd coming from Canada and the United States. The wide range of activities are making it more attractive for a more active group to come and enjoy what we have here."
Thanks to its ideal location, Puerto Vallarta has "unlimited amount of activities" that range from kayaking and boating to golfing, zip-lining and rappelling, Squire adds.
"You can probably count on your hand the number of quality cities or towns that are in a quality bay of size that have a backdrop of mountains. It really makes for a spectacular setting and a great lifestyle," he says.