Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL

During my weekly VMware training sessions, I’m always getting a bit excited when we reach the module where the ESX and virtual machine memory is covered. I’m trying to explain how important it is; not to use the virtual machine memory limit setting and very often students believe me after checking out their own production environment for ballooning activity and 9 out of 10 times they find a few virtual machine which have a memory limit configured. The memory limit is the upper limit on memory the ESX host makes available to virtual machine. Host memory reclamation happens regardless of the current host free memory state. For example, even if host free memory is in the high state, memory reclamation is still mandatory when a virtual machine’s memory usage exceeds its specified memory limit. If this happens, the ESX server will employ ballooning and, if necessary, swapping to reclaim memory from the virtual machine until the virtual machines host memory usage falls back to its specified limit.

I’ve recorded a video which shows you the Proofpudding and collected some useful links about this topic.

Scott Herold: Memory Behavior when VM Limits are Set
VMware KB: Virtual machine boots very slowly when Memory Limit
Arnim van Lieshout: PowerCLI: Reset CPU and Memory Limits

The Synology DS1010+ runs on the renewned system firmware, Synology DSM 2.3 offering comprehensive applications and features designed specifically for SMBs. Comprehensive network protocol support assures seamless file sharing across Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. Windows ADS integration allows the Synology DS1010+ to quickly and easily fit in an existing business network environment with no need to recreate users accounts on the Synology DS1010+. The User Home feature minimizes the administrator’s effort in creating a private shared folder for a large amount of users. The sub-folder privilege settings further extend the flexibility to allocate permissions for different workgroups.

Using the NFS protocol or with iSCSI target support, within Synology DSM 2.3, the Synology DS1010+ is a storage asset when serving VMware.

•CPU Frequency: 1.67GHz, Dual Core
•Floating Point
•Memory Bus: 64bit@DDR800
•Memory: 1GB10
•Internal HDD1: 3.5" SATA(II) X5 or 2.5" SATA/SSD X5
•Max Internal Capacity: 10TB (5x 2TB hard drives)9
•Hot Swappable HDD
•Size (HxWxD): 157mm X 248mm X 233mm
•External HDD Interface: USB 2.0 port X4, eSATA port X1
•Weight: 4.25kg
•LAN: Gigabit X2
•Wireless Support11

"We are pleased that the Synology DS1010+ qualifies for the VMware Ready™ logo, signifying to customers that it has passed specific VMware testing and interoperability criteria and is ready to run their mission-critical business applications and operations," said Bernie Mills, senior director, alliance programs, VMware.

Explore the cloud now with the free version of CloudSwitch Explorer. Move up to five VMware virtual machines to the Amazon EC2 cloud simply and securely with no modifications. Supports Windows and Linux apps.

This two day hands-on training course covers the requirements and effects of transitioning your VMware vSphere™ environment to VMware® ESXi. It provides the knowledge and skills necessary to make fundamental design decisions and successfully add ESXi to a deployed vSphere environment. The course is based the future version of ESXi.

Course Outline
Working with VMware ESXi
• Identify differences between ESX and ESXi
• Recognize tasks and procedures when moving to ESXi
Installing and Configuring VMware ESXi
• Analyze ESXi Installable and ESXi Embedded
• Install and configure ESXi Installable and ESXi Embedded
• Recognize the steps for upgrading to ESXi
Performing Management Tasks
• Identify hardware monitoring techniques
• Discuss system management and backup methodology
• Distinguish the log files
• Recognize security methodologies
• Employ file management practices
• Perform basic troubleshooting with the direct console user interface
Large-Scale Deployment of VMware ESXi
• Identify scripted installation programs for ESXi (SDK and Weasel)
• Analyze the commands to perform scripted installation
• Discuss best practices for large-scale deployment
Using Scripting Interfaces
• Identify the scripting interfaces for ESXi
• Discuss primary scripting interfaces
• Install VMware vSphere Management Assistant
• Identify differences between commands used with ESX and those used with ESXi
• Recognize custom commands and how to substitute VMware vSphere Command-Line Interface commands or vSphere PowerCLI cmdlets for them.

At the end of the course, you should be able to: Analyze ESXi and its benefits for your environment, Identify ESXi installation and configuration procedures, Use scripted installations for large-scale ESXi deployments, Employ scripting interfaces to manage ESXi and Identify risks when migrating to ESXi.

This three day course with 60% lecture and 40% lab exercises shows you how to follow best practices for secure design, deployment, and operation of a VMware vSphere™ environment. Through lecture, discussion, and hands-on practice, you will gain the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the security and compliance goals of your organization.

Course Outline
Module 1: Course Introduction
• Introductions and course logistics
• Online resources for security and compliance
Module 2: Security in a Virtual Environment
• Review of information security and risk management concepts
• How virtualization affects security and compliance
• Top vulnerabilities in a virtual environment
• Basic guidelines for securing a virtual environment
• Security tools and technologies
Module 3: Secure Virtual Networking
• vNetwork security architecture
• Network segmentation and traffic isolation
• Secure virtual network configuration
• Traffic isolation with private VLANs
Module 4: Protecting the Management Environment
• vCenter Server authentication, authorization, and accountingWorking with SSL certificates
• Hardening the vCenter Server system
Module 5: Protecting VMware ESX/ESXi Host Systems
• ESX and ESXi security architecture
• Controlling access to storage
• Hardening ESX and ESXi hosts.
Module 6: Hardening Virtual Machines
• Virtual machine security architecture
• Configuring security parameters
Module 7: Configuration and Change Management
• Configuration and change management goals and guidelines
• Maintaining the proper configuration of vSphere components
• Monitoring logs for security-related events
• Configuration and change management tools and technologie

Members of this group have gained the in-depth skills and industry-recognized certification on VMware technology. The VMware Certified Professional Program is designed for everyone who wants to demonstrate their expertise in virtual infrastructure and increase his potential for career advancement. If you are a VCP you can join this group.

If you don’t know what a LinkedIn group is, here is a short explanation : Many professionals advance their careers and business goals by counting on industry and professional groups, alumni organizations, industry conferences and corporate alumni groups to help them make vital new business contacts. The VMware LinkedIn Groups offers extra features stay in touch with one another and discover powerful new business contacts within their groups and beyond.

2X Software has announced the release of its Linux-based 2X CloudClient operating system. It can easily be used as a VMware View Client running from USB. I didn’t had the time to check it out, but it looks great.
 
Go to http://www.2x.com/ccos and instantly install your FREE personal 2X CloudClient operating system on a USB device (no larger than 512 MB). Your portable CloudClient operating system can then be run from any computer that can boot from a USB device, allowing you to instantly connect to hosted virtual desktop applications, such as Google Apps, Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware. It serves as your personal cloud client you can carry in your pocket wherever you might need it.
Alternatively, burn the 2X CloudClient OS to a bootable CD-ROM, or install it on a local hard drive and run it as a Network Boot OS from your local network.

Features:

• Supports Web applications, such as Google Apps, Microsoft Live, Web browsers, and more.
• Installs and boots from any type of USB device, or from a CDROM and hard drive.
• Converts standard PC’s, laptops, netbooks or thin clients to a cloud device.

Includes virtual desktop and application clients, such as Microsoft RDP, VMware View, Citrix XenApp and the 2X VirtualDesktopServer Client.

If you don’t have a fancy physical iSCSI target in your lab but still want to do some testing with the esxcli command, Starwind software offers a great iSCSI alternative with their StarWind iSCSI SAN software. It can be used as shared storage for almost any application, it is fully compatible for use with VMware.

After you have created a StarWind iSCSI target, it’s ready to service connections. You can established a connection to an iSCSI target and it appears as a new datastore on your ESX server. I’ll show the operations you need to complete to create and format the datastore in the way your ESX server can create virtual machines on it.

I’m also going to show how the esxcli command can be used for PSA (pluggable storage architecture) management and explain how to use the vSphere Client to manage the PSA, the associated native multipathing plug‐in (NMP).

In this online training we’re going to take a look at the multi pathing policy, in this particular case we’re using round robin. For this setup, because multipathing plugins do not have direct access to physical NICs on your host, you first need to connect each physical NIC to a separate VMkernel port. You then associate all VMkernel ports with the software iSCSI initiator using a port binding technique. As a result, each VMkernel port connected to a separate NIC becomes a different path that the iSCSI storage stack.

http://www.starwindsoftware.com/iscsi-san-for-microsoft-windows-multipathing
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/download-free-trial

A great whiteboard presentation by fellow VMware Certified Instructor Bob King in which he discusses the disk processes behind both VMFS and RDM datastore access within a VMware infrastructure.

This blueprint is intended to provide information about the objectives covered by this exam, related resources, and recommended courses. The material contained within this blueprint is not intended to guarantee that a passing score will be achieved on the exam. VMware recommends that a candidate thoroughly understands the objectives indicated in this guide and utilizes the resources and courses recommended in this guide where needed to gain that understanding.

Although VMware’s website still has a landing page for VMware vCenter ConfigControl, the rumour goes that this product will be rebranded into vCenter Change Insight. This soon to be released new product is able to track, analyze, assess and take corrective actions to maintain configuration integrity.  It’s also able to setup policies to invoke workflows on a selected set of entities, upon a schedule or an event.

The preliminary feature list looks very promising

• Auto-documents environment, all entities, relationships, dependencies
• Tracks and alerts on configuration and relationship changes real time
• Assesses configurations against past, peers and best practices
• Takes corrective actions via policies (e.g. call out to Orchestrator)

Benefits

• Risk mitigation through improved visibility into ripple through effects
• Improve opex through visibility and streamlined remediation
• Integrates with existing products and processes
• Track, analyze, assess & take corrective actions to maintain configuration integrity

With the integration of vCenter Change Insight and Orchestrator you’re able to make custom mass configuration changes and corrections.

You better keep a close watch on the new vSphere Team blog "vThink IT", were David Friedlander and Bogomil Balkansky already have posted their first articles.

The Operations Panel is a script tool, which runs on the client browser and extends the default ESX server web page with a short list of all available virtual machines. It gives the user the ability to perform simple power operations (start, stop, suspend, resume). Easily accessible user interface for some of the most common operations on an ESX host, available directly from the ESX home page.

This online training video will show you how to embed the Ops Panel into your existing ESX landing page.

This hands-on training course introduces the use of VMware vSphere™ PowerCLI to automate VMware vSphere 4. This course demonstrates ways to automate tasks that can reduce your IT costs while improving efficiency, availability, flexibility, and manageability.

Objectives   

•  Automate VMware® ESX™ configuration
•  Automate the provisioning of virtual machines
•  Automate changes to virtual machine configuration
•  Automate cluster operations
•  Automate reporting
 
Who Should Attend?   

This course is designed for technical persons responsible for managing ESX, VMware ESXi, and VMware vCenter™ Server, including IT managers, system architects, and system administrators.
 
Prerequisites   

System administration experience on Microsoft Windows or Linux operating systems and completion of either the VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage or the VMware vSphere: Fast Track course. Also scripting experience in one of the following languages: VBScript, Perl, UNIX shell scripts, Python, or other languages with variables and control structures.

http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrreg/courses.cfm?ui=www_edu&a=one&id_subject=19082