One of my virtualization friends is attending the VMworld 2010 in San Francisco and has sent me some pictures of an early beta storage troubleshooting tool. VMware Storage Tester is an virtual appliance solution for performance and diagnostics. VMware Storage Tester automates the traditional storage performance analysis cycle to reduce the diagnosis time from days to hours. It provides an automated framework for configuring and launching storage diagnostic test in large-scale virtual deployments. In future releases it will feature a rule-based diagnostic engine running a decision tree algorithm to provide diagnostic information based on a knowledge base and the stored performance database.

If you’re attending the VMworld make sure you save some time to walk through the performance lab and stay till the end :-) This lab covers performance monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimization in VMware vSphere.  Key concepts of performance will be presented via hands-on activities that will demonstrate the concepts.  The lab will explore Storage bottlenecks, CPU contention, and Memory over commitment issues. Participants will learn how to identify these common performance issues using VMware vCenter charts and performance metrics. Participants will also learn basic tuning recommendations for how to address these issues and optimize their virtual environment.

Lab 24: VMware vSphere Performance & Tuning 

   

This year to give VMworld Attendees the best possible hands-on experice, a huge VMware team worked out a huge infrastructure of 2 datacenters in the Cloud (internet) and one on-site, to provide a fully self-serviced lab system with 30 topics covering allmost all VMware solutions. If you did not have a change to be here in San Francisco, check out VMworld in Copenhagen that will be held in October, as this same awesome Lab Environment will be available there as well to the attendees.

VMware is doing a great job with recording interviews during the VMworld 2010 and broadcasting them through their YouTube VMworldTV Channel. In a recent interview VMware’s Senior Director, Mobile Solutions; Srinivas Krishnamurti showed a real cool app on the iPad which is able to manage virtual machines and ESX servers. Take a good look at the ESX version number, it’s showing the future ESX 5.0

 

Yes, we at VMworldTV try to hunt down all the good stuff that is going on here at VMworld. Including this exclusive cool new iPad App to manage your entire vSphere environment. So 'soon' you can use your iPad besides your win32 vSphere client to manage your servers, including possible features like vmotion and SRM interaction. How cool is that!!

Update by @vConsult: ETA for iPad vCenter client is VMworld Europe! info first hand from Srinivas Krishnamurti, the guy in the video! Very cool !!!

Kudos to @diederikm for discovering the leak

During VMworld 2010 in San Francisco one of the big messages being pushed out to the attendees is that VMware ESX will no longer have a future. The 4.1 release will be the last release of VMware ESX, future releases will only come with ESXi. Dauglas Phillips interviewed Sean and Charu from the ESXi team about what this will mean for customers. Is ESXi up to the challenge?

When you visit the VMworld Content Catalogue for a full listing of Labs and Breakout Sessions, you will notice that there are some numbers missing. This is because some of the Labs VMware can tell you about right now. Others will be revealed at the conference. After some ID guessing I finally have solved the lab 13 mystery and here it is:

Lab 13: VMware vCloud Director - Install & Config

VMware Cloud Director delivers the Infrastructure as a Service platform of VMware’s vCloud Strategy. This lab will enable you to understand the key components and high level architecture of VMware Cloud Director platform. Understand the system requirements and pre-reqs for a successful installation. Learn the steps to Install and configure VMware vCloud Director for first time use. Finally configure VMware Cloud Director to deliver a simple service offering.

VMware vCloud Director is a software solution that enables enterprises to build secure, multitenant private clouds by pooling infrastructure resources into virtual datacenters and exposing them to users through Web-based portals and programmatic interfaces as fully automated, catalog-based services. By building secure and cost-effective private clouds with vSphere and VMware vCloud Director, internal IT organizations can act as true service providers for the businesses they support, driving innovation and agility while increasing IT efficiency and enhancing security. This solution provides a pragmatic path to cloud computing by giving customers the power to leverage existing investments and the flexibility to extend capacity among clouds.

Integrated vShield Edge technologies such as perimeter protection, port-level firewalling, network address translation and DHCP services offer virtualization-aware security, simplify application deployment, and enforce boundaries required by compliance standards in the private cloud. VMware vCenter Chargeback is a software solution that allows IT organizations to gain visibility into the costs of provisioned virtual machines to facilitate planning and decision making. It also enables IT organizations to meter and charge users based on policies.

http://www.vmware.com/products/vcloud-director/

VMware vCloud Director Evaluator's Guide

The purpose of this document is to support a self-guided, hands-on evaluation of VMware Cloud Director 1.0. This document is intended to provide IT professionals with the necessary information to stand up a VMware Cloud Director based Cloud in a VMware vSphere environment. This guide will walk you through key use cases for VMware Cloud Director to help you conduct a successful product evaluation.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/VMW-vCloud-Director-EvalGuide.pdf

Maximum vSphere is the complete, up-to-the-minute working reference for everyone who plans, implements, or runs VMware virtual infrastructure. Authored by top VMware consultant Eric Siebert, the book brings together proven best practices, tips, and solutions for achieving outstanding performance and reliability in your production environment. This book brings together crucial knowledge you won’t find anywhere else, including powerful new vSphere 4 techniques drawn from the experiences of dozens of advanced practitioners. You’ll find sophisticated, expert coverage of virtual machines, ESX/ESXi hosts, vCenter Server, networking, storage, monitoring, troubleshooting, backups, vMotion, fault tolerance, vSphere management, installation, upgrades, security, third-party tools, and more. The author takes the same hands-on approach that made his VMware® VI3 Implementation and Administration so popular. Whether you’re implementing or managing vSphere 4, upgrading from older virtualization technologies, or taking new responsibilities in any VMware environment, you’ll find this book indispensable.
 
Chapter 1: Introduction to vSphere
Chapter 2: ESX & ESXI HOSTS
Chapter 3: Virtual Machines
Chapter 4: vCenter Server
Chapter 5: Storage in vSphere
Chapter 6: Networking in vSphere
Chapter 7: Performance in vSphere
Chapter 8: Backups in vSphere
Chapter 9: Advanced Features
Chapter 10: Management Of vSphere
Chapter 11: Installing vSphere
Chapter 12: Upgrading To vSphere
Chapter 13: Creating And Configuring Virtual Machines
Chapter 14: Building Your Own vSphere Lab

Other Book Details:

Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (20 Aug 2010)
Language English

Simon Seagrave and Eric Siebert have confirmation that the book is released this morning.  It will be available in both paperback and Kindle formats, an electronic version is also available on the Safari book website.
Simon has written the chapters on ‘Performance in vSphere’ and ‘Building Your Own vSphere Lab’ with Eric writing all the other chapters.  The forword is by John Troyer. 

Continue reading "New Book: Maximum vSphere"

If you’re attending the VMworld 2010 next week you might want to consider putting the following session on your most wanted list.

Session ID: BC8432
Session Title: SRM Futures: Host Based Replication

Host based replication (HBR) is the ability to replicate VM’s between dissimilar storage. Meaning for example, from an ESX local hard drive to a storage array in a different location. This technology will be in a future version of SRM and it will allow you to protect a remote location as if you had replicating storage arrays in common between it and your main datacenter. SRM will allow you to replicate individual VM’s as part of a protection strategy. This replication will be done without guest agents and is managed inside SRM. You will see screen shots, and learn the use cases that have driven this feature set. You will learn how to install, configure and use it.

Speakers: Patrick Tullmann; Senior Staff Engineer at VMware and Michael White; Senior Technical Marketing Architect BCDR at VMware

The first official VMware training course I’ve delivered was back in 2007. We were just shifting from ESX 2.5 to ESX 3.0 back then. In the early days I delivered just one training course a month and the rest of my time was filled up with consultancy. In the past few years the numbers of attendees just exploded. These days you will find vSphere within every company and there’s a much higher demand for VMware training courses. The number of VCPs have increased in a high rate as well. The nice thing about being in the training business “for so many years” is, that with every new version, you see some familiar faces back in the classroom.

But let’s jump to the present. At the beginning of this year VMware has announced the EMEA VCI of the Quarter award program. The award recognizes exceptional VMware Certified Instructors from the EMEA region. Potential candidates are nominated by VATCs having demonstrated a combination of consistent excellence in customer evaluation scores and an ability to help students make the most of their VMware technology.  In addition candidates will be evaluated based on their contribution to the VCI community forums, early adoption of new training courses and a commitment to raising the quality of VMware’s education portfolio. Each quarter a VATC can nominate one directly employed and one independent VCI whom they have contracted with the nomination period. The VCIs nominated will undergo a thorough review process to be considered for the award. A panel that includes members of the EMEA VATC education team evaluates each nominee's technical expertise and contributions for the past 3 months. The panel considers the quality, quantity, and level of impact of the nominee's contributions.

I’m very lucky with Raymond Boelhouwer who works as a Business Development Manager over at Global Knowledge. He’s the one who has nominated me and says:  Although Eric is a freelance instructor he has taught many advanced and new VMware courses for Global Knowledge in the last quarter. All his deliveries are granted high scores by the attendees even for first deliveries which are not easy to do. For an organization as Global Knowledge it is easy to work with Eric and you can trust a job well done.

So last month I received an email from Kevin Johnson – VMware’s Northern Region Education Manager congratulating me as the best VMware Certified instructor of the quarter.

The winner for the Independent VCI of the Quarter is Eric Sloof. This was a very easy selection to make. Eric has been very busy over the last 3 months and has delivered 14 classes over a wide range of subjects, two of these classes were LoL. Eric’s scores were also consistently high. Eric is also very active in the VCI community.

You can imagine that  I’m very proud with being awarded as the Independent VCI of Q2 2010. This morning I’ve received the official "Award of Appreciation" plaque from Raymond Boelhouwer. I can only say one thing, many thanks to all, it was my pleasure.  

                           

Pearson IT Certification has released the first sample chapter of the upcoming book "VMWare High Availability Constructs" written by Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman.

Duncan Epping is a Consulting Architect working for VMware as part of the Cloud Practice. Duncan works primarily with Service Providers and large Enterprise customers. He is focused on designing Public Cloud Infrastructures and specializes in bc-dr, vCloud and VMware HA. Duncan is a VMware Certified Professional and among the first VMware Certified Design Experts (VCDX 007). Duncan is the owner of Yellow-Bricks.com, one of the leading VMware/virtualization blogs worldwide (recently voted number 1 worldwide on vsphere-land.com) and co-author of the "vSphere Quick Start Guide" and "Foundation for Cloud Computing with VMware vSphere 4," which has recently been published by Usenix/Sage (#21 in the Short Topics Series). He can be followed on twitter at http://twitter.com/DuncanYB.

Frank Denneman is a Senior Consultant working for VMware as part of the Professional Services Organization. Frank works primarily with large Enterprise customers and Service Providers. He is focused on designing large vSphere Infrastructures and specializes in Resource Management and DRS in general. Frank is a VMware Certified Professional and among the first VMware Certified Design Experts (VCDX 029). Frank is the owner of FrankDenneman.nl an upcoming blog which has recently been voted number 14 worldwide on vsphere-land.com. He can be followed on twitter at http://twitter.com/FrankDenneman.

When configuring VMware High Availability (HA), two major decisions will need to be made. Will I enable Admission Control? And which Isolation Response will I select? This chapter will explain both concepts in depth and make you aware of the caveats and the impact of your decisions. After reading this chapter you will be able to select the correct Isolation Response and Admission Control policy based on your requirements and constraints.

This is Chapter 5 from the upcoming book.

The new SolarWinds free VM Console enables you to bounce your virtual machines without ever logging into VMware! Plus, you can track up/down status, take snapshots, and restart VMs even if you’re not a VMware administrator. Be a VM superhero with the ability to:

• Shutdown & restart VMs without logging into vCenter or vSphere
  
  
• Take snapshots of your VMs before bouncing them
  
  
• Get end-to-end visibility into your VMware environment — from vCenter through ESX hosts to VM guests
  
  
• Track the up/down status of your VMs without logging into VMware apps

I just downloaded a new FREE network tool from SolarWinds which you might like. SolarWind's VM Console Free Tool lets you monitor, and restart virtual machines without logging into VMware vCenter or Vsphere! You can download it here: http://bit.ly/93WjRH

William Lam over at virtuallyghetto has posted a great article with a lot of in-depth knowledge regarding the secrets of the vsish shell. While I was reading trough the article I discovered a link to a DeepDive training that deserves a post of its own. The two slide decks are created by Iwan Rahabok who works as a Senior Systems Consultant at VMware and can be found here:

vSphere 4.1 (DeepDive) Delta training.zip (8.9 MB)

This video <- HD version - will show you how to create a stateless VMware vSphere Hypervisor formally known as ESXi and how to boot it trough PXE-iSCSI. Yesterday evening I finally succeeded in booting an ESXi 4.1 host with PXE and iSCSI. After firing the tweet, I’ve received a lot of responses asking me how I did it. In the video I’ll show you how to build your own staging server and the deployment of an ESXi 4.1 host. I’m not really a Linux guy so I had to create a Windows distribution server. In my search I’ve discovered a great little piece of software called CCBoot. This windows application enables a diskless boot of an OS with PXE and iSCSI. Diskless boot makes it possible for ESXi server to be operated without a local disk. The 'diskless' server is connected to a VMDK file over the network and boots up the hypervisor from the remotely located VMDK file which was created in VMware WorkStation. CCBoot is the convergence of the rapidly emerging iSCSI protocol with gPXE diskless boot technology. Remote boot over iSCSI, or CCBoot, pushes the iSCSI technology even further, opening the door to the exciting possibility of the diskless computer.

Here are the steps to set it up

The first thing to do is create a VMDK file with ESXi 4,1 in it, I’ve used VMware Workstation 7.1.
When ESXi 4.1 is installed we’re going to set-up the distribution server, go to http://ccboot.com and download CCBoot v1.9 Build 20100128 (5 users free version). When you’ve installed it, create an entry for you ESXi 4.1 host and you’re ready to run.

In my previous post "Running the VMware vSphere Hypervisor stateless" I’ve explained how to setup an ESXi deployment server, but now we are going to take it one step further. To be able to save the ESXi configuration settings there’s a CCBoot feature available which is called “Write Back”. In this episode (HD) I’m going to show you how to enable “Write Back” for both the ESXi host and the CCBoot server. After rebooting the ESXI host the configuration will be preserved.

AnywhereUSB products are network-attached USB hubs that connect USB peripheral devices to a PC over a Local Area Network. The AnywhereUSB TS model also adds four RS-232 serial ports, enabling the mixing of USB and serial ports over the same network connection. Relocating the host PC to a remote location translates to smaller workstations, enabling deployment without a local PC in kiosks, ATMs, restaurant kitchens, manufacturing lines or any hostile or non-secure area where having a local PC is not practical.

New 19'' Rack model

VMware ESX Server Using AnywhereUSB to Connect USB Devices

This new book written by Charles A. Windom and Hemant Gaidhani just got published last week and it's available at Amazon. Hemant Gaidhani says: Looks good and worth all the efforts. Click 'Look Inside' @ Amazon to get sneak preview.

Working with VMware vSphere 4, this book shows you how to virtualize Microsoft applications that require high CPU and high I/O and/or are critical applications for business operations—“Tier 1”applications. With authors who are not only insiders at VMware but who also have developed best practices for multi-tier applications for VMware environments, this book will guide you step-by-step in virtualizing the latest versions of Exchange Server, SQL Server, SharePoint Server, Active Directory, Windows Server, Internet Information Server, and Remote Desktop Services. The authors cover critical topics: reasons why to virtualize the application, considerations to be made when virtualizing the application, setting up a Proof-of-Concept of the application, storage, high availability, and monitoring. Material is organized such that readers can choose which chapters to read, depending on which applications they are considering to virtualize.

The VCAP-DCD is directed toward IT Architects and Consulting Architects who are capable of designing VMware solutions in a multi-site, large enterprise environment.  They have a deep understanding both of VMware core components and their relation to storage and networking, and also of datacenter design methodologies. They also possess knowledge of applications and physical infrastructure, as well as their relationship to the virtual infrastructure.

VCAP-DCD Exam Blueprint

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.

VMware Auto Deploy supports automatic PXE boot and customization of large numbers of ESXi systems. Auto Deploy allows rapid deployment and configuration of a large number of ESXi hosts. After a DHCP server has been set up, Auto Deploy PXE boots machines that are turned on with an ESXi image. Auto Deploy then customizes the ESXi systems using host profiles and other information stored on the managing vCenter Server system. You can set up the environment to use different images and different host profiles for different hosts.

System Requirements

• ESX/ESXi system to install the virtual appliance on. This system must be able to connect to the vCenter Server system on which you want to create and store the host profiles.
• Static IP address to assign to the VMware Auto Deploy appliance during startup.
• vCenter Server system to manage the auto‐deployed ESX/ESXi systems and to store the host profiles.
• MAC address or asset tag of each ESXi system you want to PXE boot.
• DNS Server that maps IP addresses to host names. (Optional)

Quickstart instructions

1. Deploy the OVA file on an ESX/ESXi server. The autodeploy VM should have a NIC connected to the management network.
2. Boot the new VM.
3. Go to the VM's console and answer any questions.
4. If the management network has no DHCP server, login as vi-admin and run 'sudo deploy-cmd dhcpconfig'. Otherwise, consult the manual for setting up the DHCP server.
5. Network boot the machine to be used as an ESXi server. It should contact autodeploy and start booting ESXi.

Version: 1.0 | File size: 1.18GB | Date uploaded: 08/12/2010

vSphere 4.1 introduces a load-based teaming (LBT) policy that ensures vDS dvUplink capacity is optimized. LBT avoids the situation of other teaming policies in which some of the dvUplinks in a DV Port Group’s team were idle while others were completely saturated just because the teaming policy used is statically determined. LBT reshuffles port binding dynamically based on load and dvUplinks usage to make an efficient use of the bandwidth available. LBT only moves ports to dvUplinks configured for the corresponding DV Port Group’s team. Note that LBT does not use shares or limits to make its judgment while rebinding ports from one dvUplink to another. LBT is not the default teaming policy in a DV Port Group so it is up to the user to configure it as the active policy.
LBT will only move a flow when the mean send or receive utilization on an uplink exceeds 75 percent of capacity over a 30-second period. LBT will not move flows more often than every 30 seconds. This video will show Load-Based Teaming (LBT) in action.

In this white paper, VMware shows some of the great new performance features for vCenter Server that come with vSphere 4.1, hardware sizing guidelines and software requirements, performance best practices with performance tuning, monitoring, and troubleshooting tips, performance monitoring tools, and case studies to demonstrate the performance improvements made in vSphere 4.1. Some highlights of the performance best practices for vCenter Server 4.1 include:

• Make sure you size your system properly according to the inventory size.
• The number of network hops between vCenter Server and the ESX host affects operational latency. The ESX host should reside as few network hops away from the vCenter Server as possible.
• Effective resource planning and monitoring is necessary when using HA, FT, DRS, and DPM.
• Monitor Web Services and make sure the max heap size for Java virtual machine is set correctly according to Inventory size.
• For the vCenter Server database, separate database files for data and for logs onto drives backed by different physical disks, and make sure statistics collection times are set conservatively so that they will not overload the system.
• Be aware that the number of clients connected to vCenter Server affects its performance.
• Use performance monitoring tools to ensure the health of your system and to troubleshoot problems that arise. Performance charts give you a graphical view of statistics for your system.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vsp_41_perf_VC_Best_Practices.pdf

VMware vCenter Update Manager Performance and Best Practices

VMware vCenter Update Manager delivers the most full‐featured and robust patch management product for vSphere 4.1. This white paper displays test data and recommends various performance tips to help your Update Manager deployments run as efficiently as possible.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vsp_41_perf_UpdateManager_Best-Practices.pdf

In this (HD) video I’ll show you a new vSphere 4.1 feature regarding configuring USB Device Pass-through from an ESX/ESXi Host to a Virtual Machine. You can configure a virtual machine to use USB devices that are connected to an ESX/ESXi host where the virtual machine is running. The connection is maintained even if you migrate the virtual machine using vMotion.

When you attach a USB device to a physical host, the device is available only to virtual machines that run on that host. The device cannot connect to virtual machines that run on another host in the datacenter. A USB device is available to only one virtual machine at a time. When a device is connected to a powered-on virtual machine, it is not available to connect to other virtual machines that run on the host. When you remove the active connection of a USB device from a virtual machine, it becomes available to connect to other virtual machines that run on the host. host.

When you migrate a virtual machine with attached USB devices away from the host to which the devices are connected, the devices remain connected to the virtual machine. However, if you suspend or power off the virtual machine, the USB devices are disconnected and cannot reconnect when the virtual machineis resumed. The device connections can be restored only if you move the virtual machine back to the host to which the devices are attached.

In this video I’ll show you how you use the VI Client user interface to deploy the CapacityIQ appliance. VMware distributes the appliance as a .zip file that includes an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) file. After the import the CapacityIQ OVF file, I’ll also show you how to configure the virtual appliance.

This is a maintenance release that adds support for vSphere 4.1. Only customers using vSphere 4.1 are encouraged to upgrade to this release; there are no additional enhancements in this version.

This release does not support virtual machine-based licensing for CapacityIQ. CapacityIQ will provide this type of licensing support in an upcoming release.

CapacityIQ 1.0.4 supports 200 hosts, 2000 powered on virtual machines, and a total of 3000 virtual machines. These scalability limits exist even though the limits of vCenter Server 4.1 are 1000 hosts, 10000 powered on virtual machines, and 15000 registered virtual machines.

David Davis over at Train Signal has released the second volume of the VMware vSphere Pro Series Training Course. This new course expands on the precedent set by the first volume, with a line-up of some great new vExpert instructors Including David Davis, Hal Rottenberg, Sean Clark, and Eric Siebert.

• VMware Advanced Features Up Close by Eric Siebert
• VMware Site Recovery Manager 4 by Sean Clark
• Intro to Third-Party Virtualization Tools by David Davis
• Veeam Monitor - David Davis
• Veeam Reporter 4.0 - David Davis
• Veeam Backup and Replication - David Davis
• VMware Data Recovery (VDR) - David Davis
• PowerCLI by Hal Rottenberg

http://www.trainsignal.com/VMware-vSphere-Pro-Series-Training-Vol-2-P98.aspx

I’ve just received the new DVDs and I think I’m going to start with watching Hal and his reporting with PowerCLI video.

In this video you will walk step-by-step through the process of generating useful reports of your virtual environment using PowerCLI. Also, you will take a detailed look at the various ways to get data out of vSphere and vCenter. Plus, you will work hands-on to generate several reports that will be useful in managing your ever-changing virtual landscape.

 

The ESXGuide Website is now owned by the newly founded Company VMVision GmbH. Manfred Meier over at VMVision reports:

After a long time taking a deep dive into development of my new Virtual Infrastructure Management solution, I finally have a Beta Version ready which I will distribute to a limited number of users. The Beta Version has been tested and used in a production environment for some month. Please be aware, the registration for the Beta download will only be available for a limited period!  Registration is requiered to access the download section.

If you like to give it a try you can download it from http://www.vmvision.com

• VMVision Manager Integrates multiple vCenter Server and ESX Hosts
There's support for the integration of multiple vCenter Servers and ESX Hosts. This allows a fast integration of an existing VMware Infrastructure environment.
• Recieving Tasks and Events
VMVision Manager receives all tasks end events from all integrated vCenters and ESX Hosts. With this solution, you can keep track of all modifications and system states.

With the Single-Sign-On solution you get fast access to all entities (vCenter, ESX Hosts, Virtual Machines) is simplified. Access with the SSH protocol and Terminals allows an easy management of the ESX Hosts.

I’m back from my camper trip through France and decided to finally upgrade my ESX 4.0 hosts to version 4.1. One of my ESX servers is hosting the virtual machine with vCenter (local storage) and you cannot use the vSphere Host Update utility to upgrade ESX 4.x hosts. This utility is only for standalone ESX 3.x and ESXi hosts. A standalone host is an ESX  host that is not managed by vCenter Server. So I had to find another way to upgrade this ESX host. The resolution for this problem is the esxupdate Command-Line Utility available in the service console.

The first step is to download the following zip files from VMware’s website and copy the files to the service console:

pre-upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release
upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip

The second step is to install the pre-upgrade using esxupdate, this can be done without a reboot and without maintenance mode.

esxupdate --bundle=pre-upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip update

Now you have to put you ESX host into maintenance mode, this can also be done with the command line otherwise you will get this message: Description - Maintenance mode is not enabled or could not be determined.

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

We can finally upgrade the ESX host to 4.1 with the following command line:

esxupdate --bundle=upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip update

The update is completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the
changes to be effective.

Reboot... vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit Done

After finishing this article I discovered a similar one written by Tomi Hakala over at vReality, great work Tomi.

With vSphere 4 it is possible to create your own vSphere Plug-ins based on the .NET framework. These plug-ins work in combination with the vSphere Client, like the Update Manager or VMware Data Recovery. So the plug-ins enhance the vSphere Client to a single management tool for different business needs.

Christian Johannsen over at mightycare:

In the past some of our customers ask for integrations of their management tools or own web application in the vSphere Client. The easiest way to include web applications into the vSphere client is to use the .xml definition. The problem with this solution is the static definition of the contents. So we decide to develop a webservice plugin which is dynamic, based on the clicked object in the vSphere client (MoRefID) and allows you to define which application is deposited for this object. The plugin consist of two parts:

• the plugin for the vSphere client
• an example WebPage (index.php)

The plugin is used to configure the path to the webserver and the webpage is used to show an example for the MoRefID (Managed Object Reference ID) handling.
In this version the following managed objects could be used for web-applications:

• virtual machines
• resource pools
• host systems
• cluster

http://www.mightycare.de/aktuelles/mcswebserviceplugin_veroeffentlicht

In 2010, all VMworld Labs will be powered by the VMware cloud and presented via a self-service Lab Cloud portal, allowing VMware to increase the number of Labs offered and give you more opportunities to explore how virtualization can make a powerful impact on your organization. Unlike traditional instructor-led Labs, you are empowered not only to schedule which topics you want to take, but also when you want to take them, enabling you to choose the content that is right for your own business objectives on a schedule that allows you to maximize your conference experience.

VMworld will stage more than 18,000 lab seats and conduct up to 480 simultaneous Lab sessions during the four-day event. To build out this environment, VMware has committed 75,000+ man-hours in Lab creation and development to produce 30 Lab topics - all powered by vSphere Hypervisor, formerly vSphere ESXi. The Labs will cover everything from virtualized desktop infrastructure, through the vSphere-powered data center and into the VMware-powered cloud. With easy access to more than 100 VMware Subject Matter Experts on hand to answer questions and explore options, you'll get one-on-one attention when you need it, and still have the flexibility to move at your own pace. Forget pre-registration. With over 40 hours of available Lab time throughout the conference, you’re free to experience the latest in VMware offerings on your own schedule.

LAB01  Lab: VMware View™ 4.5 – Install and Config
LAB02  Lab: VMware View™ 4.5 - Advanced
LAB03  Lab: VMware ThinApp™ 4.6
LAB04  Lab: HyperIC for VMware vCenter™
LAB05  Lab: Intro to Zimbra Collaboration Suite
LAB06  Lab: VMware vCenter™ Configuration Manager - Provisioning, Patching, and Software Distribution 
LAB07  Lab: VMware vCenter™ Configuration Manager - Achieving Compliance 
LAB08  Lab: VMware vCenter™ AppSpeed 
LAB09  Lab: VMware vCenter™ Data Recovery
LAB10  Lab: VMware vCenter™ Server Heartbeat
LAB11  Lab: VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager - Basic Install & Config
LAB12  Lab: VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager - Extended Config & Troubleshooting 
LAB14  Lab: VMware vCenter™ Chargeback - Advanced
LAB15  Lab: VMware vCenter™ CapacityIQ
LAB16  Lab: VMware vCloud™ API 
LAB17  Lab: VMware vCenter™ Orchestrator 
LAB19  Lab: VMware vCenter™ Update Manager
LAB20  Lab: VMware vCenter™ vShield 
LAB21  Lab: Basic VMware vSphere™ - Install & Config
LAB22  Lab: VMware ESX 4.1 - New Features
LAB23  Lab: VMware ESXi Remote Management Utilities
LAB24  Lab: VMware vSphere™ Performance & Tuning
LAB25  Lab: VMware vSphere™ Troubleshooting
LAB26  Lab: VMware vSphere™ PowerCLI
LAB27  Lab: VMware vSphere™ Web Services SDK - C#
LAB28  Lab: VMware vSphere™ Web Services SDK - Java
LAB29  Lab: VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V
LAB30  Lab: VMware Products - VMware vSphere™ Sandbox

This new book with essential information on how to protect data in will be released on August 2, 2010

Virtualization is changing the data center architecture and as a result, data protection is is quickly evolving as well. This unique book, written by an industry expert with over eighteen years of data storage/backup experience, shows you how to approach, protect, and manage data in a virtualized environment. You'll get up to speed on data protection problems, explore the data protection technologies available today, see how to adapt to virtualization, and more. The book uses a "good, better, best" approach, exploring best practices for backup, high availability, disaster recovery, business continuity, and more.

Covers best practices and essential information on protecting data in virtualized enterprise environments Shows you how to approach, protect, and manage data while also meeting such challenges as return on investment, existing service level agreements (SLAs), and more Helps system and design architects understand data protection issues and technologies in advance, so they can design systems to meet the challenges Explains how to make absolutely critical services such as file services and e-mail more available without sacrificing protection Offers best practices and solutions for backup, availability, disaster recovery, and others This is a must-have guide for any Windows server and application administrator who is charged with data recovery and maintaining higher uptimes.

View the VMworld 2010 San Francisco Content Catalog, or the Copenhagen Content Catalog to learn more about the sessions, labs and speakers that make VMworld the “must-attend” event of the year.

With the broadest variety of breakout sessions ever offered, you can dive deep into the heart of virtualization and cloud computing with topics like:

Future Direction of Networking Virtualization

Troubleshooting Using esxtop for Advanced Users

New Storage Technologies
And discover new technologies around the IT-as-a-service concept with sessions like:

Cloud 101: What's Real, What's Relevant for Enterprise IT, and What Role Does VMware Play
Technical Deep Dive: vCenter Chargeback

Plus, get your hands on new technologies with more than 30 Lab topics* like:
The future of VMware ESX, VMware View, vShield and more
New acquired solutions from Ionix and Zimbra

I’m very happy with being awarded as the Independent VCI of Q2 2010.

Kevin Johnson – VMware’s Northern Region Education Manager:

Eric has been very busy over the last 3 months and has delivered 14 classes over a wide range of subjects; two of these classes were LoL. Eric’s score were also consistently high. Eric is also very active in the VCI community.

Raymond Boelhouwer - Business Development Manager over at Global Knowledge:

Although Eric is a freelance instructor he has taught many advanced and new VMware courses for Global Knowledge in the last quarter. All his deliveries are granted high scores by the attendees even for first deliveries which are not easy to do. For an organization as Global Knowledge it is easy to work with Eric and you can trust a job well done.

Andy Cary - Senior Technical Trainer EMEA over at VMware

Congratulations on winning this award you had some tough competition! You also will receive a free pass to VCI day at VMworld.

This 3 day course explores a design methodology, criteria, and approach for designing a VMware vSphere 4 virtual datacenter architecture consisting of VMware ESX/ESXi 4 and VMware vCenter Server 4. This course, by discussing the benefits and risks of available design alternatives, provides information that supports making sound design decisions. This course also provides an opportunity to practice your design skills by working with peers on a design project.

Duncan Epping, a Consulting Architect working for the VMware vCloud Services team, was involved in the development of this new training. He says: I was fortunate enough to be part of the development team for the Design Workshop. Notice the "Workshop" part as this course is different then any other VMware course you have done so far. Indeed it is a real workshop and it is all about discussing design considerations with your peers and crafting a design based on specific requirements and constraints. Although it is not an official pre-requisite I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to become a VCDX. I hope you will enjoy this workshop as much as we did creating it.

Duncan’s article regarding VMware's new approach for developing training courses will be available soon at yellow-bricks.com.

You can join me and reserve your seat at the following dates:

17 aug - 19 aug, 2010
15 sep - 17 sep, 2010

Vyatta has released a new training course to help customers who are evaluating Vyatta for routing and security in VMware and XenServer. This course will show you common use cases as well as installation, verification and basic configuration of Vyatta OVF and XVA virtual appliances for adding routing & security to VMware ESX and XenServer environments.

Free - Watch this video now at: http://www.vyatta.com/promo/virtualfirewallcourse.php


This free training course is just one of over 20 courses in the Vyatta University curriculum. For a full course catalog visit: http://www.vyatta.com/services/training.php

Many admins rely on using serial port console connections to manage physical servers. These connections usually provide a non-graphical and hence low-bandwidth remote console approach for administering physical servers. Administrators use physical serial port concentrators to multiplex connections to several hosts. vSphere 4.1 enables support for virtual serial port concentrators to provide similar functionality for virtual machines. The feature allows you to redirect virtual machine’s serial ports over a standard network link using telnet or ssh. This enables solutions such as third-party virtual serial port concentrators, like the new virtual appliance-based Avocent Cyclades ACS 6000, for virtual machine serial console management or monitoring. Providing a suitable way to remote a VM’s serial port(s) over a network connection, and supporting a “virtual serial port concentrator” utility, thus, gives VI administrators a first-class support for the traditional server management approach. Furthermore, these console connections are also considered more secure for virtual machines since the traffic is only on the management network. The Virtual Machine settings user interface has been modified to allow serial port configuration.

Implementing the Avocent ACS6000 Virtual Serial Port Concentrator

Using a Proxy with vSphere Virtual Serial Ports

This hands-on training course explores installation, configuration, and management of VMware vSphere 4,1, which consists of VMware ESX™/ESXi and VMware vCenter™ Server. The course is based on ESX/ESXi 4.1 and vCenter Server 4.1. Upon completion of this course, you can take the examination to qualify as a VMware Certified Professional (VCP4).

Students who complete this course may enroll in any of several advanced vSphere courses.

The old 4-day course will change in duration to a 5-day class for all sessions after August 23rd. For differences please look at the course datasheet.

Scott Vessey has discovered some differences between the old and the new course. The new content in the 5-day ICM will be:

• vCenter Linked Mode
• Host Profiles
• Distributed Power Management
• Deeper content on High Availability
• Fault Tolerance

The VMware knowledge base contains some useful articles regarding the new vSphere 4.1 release.

• Using Tech Support Mode in ESXi 4.1
• Troubleshooting ESXi 4.1 Scripted Install errors
• Recreate vSphere 4.0 lockdown mode behavior in vSphere 4.1
• vCenter Server 4.1 fails to install or upgrade with the error: This installation package is not supported by this processor type
• Migrating to the vCenter Server 4.1 database
• Update Manager 4.1 patch repository features
• Lockdown mode configuration after upgrading from ESXi 4.0 to 4.1
• Changes to VMware Support Options in vSphere 4.1
• Securing Credentials in vMA 4.1
• Overview of Active Directory integration in ESX 4.1 and ESXi 4.1
• ALUA parameters in the output of ESX/ESXi 4.1 commands
• USB support for ESX/ESXi 4.1

 

Finally, with Transparent Memory Compression, 4.1 will compress memory on the fly to increase the amount of memory that appears to be available to a given VM. The new Transparent Memory Compression is of interest in the workload cases where memory -- rather than CPU cycles -- has limitations. ESX/ESXi provides a Memory Compression cache to improve virtual machine performance when using memory over-commitment. Memory Compression is enabled by default when a host's memory becomes overcommitted; ESX/ESXi compresses virtual pages and stores them in memory.  

Since accessing compressed memory is faster than accessing memory swapped to disk, Memory Compression in ESX/ESXi allows memory over-commits without significantly hindering performance. When a virtual page needs to be swapped, ESX/ESXi first attempts to compress the page. Pages that can be compressed to 2 KB or smaller are stored in the virtual machine's compression cache, increasing the capacity of the host. The maximum size can be set for the Compression Cache and disable Memory Compression using the Advanced Settings dialog box in the vSphere Client.

The vSphere 4.1 vMotion enhancements significantly reduce the overall time for host evacuations, with support for more simultaneous virtual machine migrations and faster individual virtual machine migrations. The result is a performance improvement of up to 5x for an individual virtual machine migration and support for four to eight simultaneous vMotion migrations per host, depending on the vMotion network adapter (1GbE or 10GbE respectively).

The diagram at left should be familiar to most. When using 1GigE NICs, ESX hosts are typically deployed with NICs dedicated to particular traffic types. For example you may dedicate 4x 1GigE NICs for VM traffic; one NIC to iSCSI, another NIC to vMotion, and another to the service console. Each traffic type gets a dedicated bandwidth by virtue of the physical NIC allocation. 

Moving to the diagram at right … ESX hosts deployed with 10GigE NICs are likely to be deployed (for the time being) with only two 10GigE interfaces. Multiple traffic types will be converged over the two interfaces. So long as the load offered to the 10GE interfaces is less than 10GE, everything is ok—the NIC can service the offered load. But what happens when the offered load from the various traffic types exceeds the capacity of the interface? What happens when you offer say 11Gbps to a 10GigE interface? Something has to suffer. This is where Network IO Control steps in. It addresses the issue of oversubscription by allowing you to set the relative importance of predetermined traffic types. 

NetIOC is controlled with two parameters—Limits and Shares.

Limits, as the name suggests, sets a limit for that traffic type (e.g VM traffic) across the NIC team. The value is specified in absolute terms in Mbps. When set, that traffic type will not exceed that limit outbound (or egress) of the host.

Shares specify the relative importance of that traffic type when those traffic types compete for a particular vmnic (phyiscal NIC). Shares are specified in abstract units numbered between 1 and 100 and indicate the relative importance of that traffic type. For example, if iSCSI has a shares value of 50, and FT logging has a shares value of 100, then FT traffic will get 2x the bandwidth of iSCSI when they compete. If they were both set at 50, or both set at 100, then they would both get the same level of service (bandwidth).

There are a number of preset values for shares ranging from low to high. You can also set custom values. Note that the limits and shares apply to output or egress from the ESX host, not input.

Remember that shares apply to the vmnics; limits apply across a team.

With the release of vSphere 4.1, storage IO Control allows cluster-wide storage IO prioritization. This allows better workload consolidation and helps reduce extra costs associated with over-provisioning. Storage IO Control extends the constructs of shares and limits to handle storage IO resources. The amount of storage IO that is allocated to virtual machines during periods of IO congestion can be controlled, which ensures that more important virtual machines get preference over less important virtual machines for IO resource allocation.

When Storage IO Control on a datastore is enabled, ESX/ESXi begins to monitor the device latency that hosts observe when communicating with that datastore. When device latency exceeds a threshold, the datastore is considered to be congested and each virtual machine that accesses that datastore is allocated IO resources in proportion to their shares and is set per virtual machine. The number can be adjusted for each based on need. Low priority VMs can limit IO bandwidth for high priority VMs and storage allocation should be in line with VM priorities.

This feature enables pre-datastore priorities/shares for VM to improve total throughput and has Cluster level enforcement for shares for all workload accessing a datastore. Configuring Storage I/O Control is a two-step process:

1. Enable Storage I/O Control for the datastore.
2. Set the number of storage I/O shares and upper limit of I/O operations per second (IOPS) allowed for each virtual machine. By default, all virtual machine shares are set to Normal (1000) with unlimited IOPS.

Duncan Epping        : Storage IO Control, the movie
Scott Drummonds    : Storage IO Control
VirtualMiscellaneous : Storage IO Control - SIOC

John Troyer and Luke Kilpatrick of VMware's Social Media Team give a full demonstration of the features and use of the VMworld 2010 Backpack.

Get your very own VMworld 2010 Backpack by registering and attending VMworld 2010 at the Moscone Center, San Francisco, August 30th - September 2nd or at the Bella Center, Copenhagen, October 12th -- 14th - http://bit.ly/bc9sqO

Fellow vExpert Eric Siebert has written a great article about affordable storage solutions which can be used as shared storage for VMware vSphere. In his article he sums up all the vendors followed by a nice comparison chart with things like the numbers of bays, support for iSCSI or NFS, the number of network connections and capacity. So check out his article with affordable shared storage options.

• Drobo
• Hewlett-Packard
• Iomega
• Netgear
• QNAP
• Synology
• Thecus

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com.au/articles/42004-VMware-vSphere-shared-storage-guide

Every once in a while you will experience problems that only can be fixed by visiting the ESX console, at least I do. When you finally have found the IP address or hostname and you’re using your favourite browser to load the MKS java applet, the information is scrolling fast and your keyboard isn’t mapped correctly. These two problems can be fixed easily, you have to fix the real problem yourself.

First let’s start with the scrolling problem. When you issue a command like esxcfg-vswitch because you want to check out your vSwitch configuration, you only see the last part and can’t scroll back. You might want to redirect the outcome of your command into a file and use nano to walk through it.

esxcfg-vswitch -l >> network.txt
nano network.txt

This type of redirection pipes the output into the file network.txt.  The difference between this and the single-'>' redirection is that the old contents (if any) of network.txt are not erased.  Instead, the esxcfg -l output is appended to the file.

The second problem I have experienced a lot it an incorrect mapping of the keyboard. This problem can be easily fixed by loading a different keyboard translation table. The program loadkeys reads the file or files specified by filename.... Its main purpose is to load the kernel keymap for the console. 

Loadkeys us will do the trick.

Fellow vExpert Jakub Felinski over at the weblog “Virtualization in Practice” has posted a really nice article about using Nagios to monitor a VMware vSphere environment. Nagios is a popular open source computer system and network monitoring software application. It watches hosts and services, alerting users when things go wrong and again when they get better. Jacub has added all the necessary VMware modules to the Nagios virtual appliance which can be downloaded in OVF format at his website. He also created a description with the configuration changes at ESX level, it’s real easy to get it up and running. The original Polish article with download link can be found here and the Google translation can be found here.

By default, each ESX host gets a set of basic tests which include:

•  CPU usage
•  Disk latency (read write)
•  Hardware sensors
•  Disk operations canceled
•  State of network cards
•  Memory swapping
•  Free space in each Datastore

VMware vCenter Configuration Manager's (formerly EMC Ionix Server Configuration Manager) policy-driven automation detects deep system changes and identifies whether that change is within policy - an expected and acceptable behavior based on industry, regulatory, or your own self-defined best practices - or whether that change has created a compliance violation or security vulnerability.

http://www.vmware.com/products/configuration-manager/

Automate configuration management across virtual and physical servers, workstations, and desktops with VMware vCenter Configuration Manager. Increase efficiency by eliminating manual, error-prone and time-consuming work.

• Avoid configuration drift by automatically detecting and comparing changes to policies
• Maintain continuous compliance with out-of-the box templates and toolkits
• Automate and optimize server provisioning and application stack deployment in the datacenter

Also take a look at:

VMware vCenter Application Discovery Manager

Quickly and accurately map your application dependencies to accelerate datacenter moves, precisely plan infrastructure consolidations and confidently virtualize your business critical applications.

VMware Service Manager

VMware Service Manager develops a 100% web architected solution that automates IT Service Management processes in enterprise organizations.VMware Service Manager is independently verified to the highest level of ITIL compatibility for Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Release Management, Configuration Management, Service Level Management and Availability Management.

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

Recently I was one of the attendees at a super secret WebEx session hosted by VMware. In this session there was a real cool demo regarding an upcoming memory maximization technology called memory compression. One of the presenters used a special self written Memory Performance Testing utility to outline the speed of different types of memory. A few days ago I recorded a video about the impact of using virtual machine memory limits and I used the same utility to prove that reading from ballooned memory will have a performance penalty. I’ve received a great number of requests for a copy of the Memory Performance Tool which was written by Joey Dieckhans; a performance specialist in the Technical Marketing group at VMware. Joey was very glad to hear people liked it and has provided the Memory Performance Tester and the source code for public use.

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/uploads/MemoryPerformanceTester.zip

So if you’re a Visual Basic programmer and you’re able to add new features please give me a heads up so we can share new (more advanced) versions in te future. 

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.