Eric Sloof

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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