Entries from Eric Sloof

For provisioning of ESX hosts, vCenter leverages a technology called Host Profiles, these profiles can be associated with a cluster so when you add capacity to your cluster, the host profile is automatically applied to your new host. It also facilitates compliance monitoring and remediation.

But it can also be used for disaster recovery. A host profile captures the configuration of a specific host. This profile can then be used to configure a newly added host based on the profile of your crashed host. The first step is to create a profile for every ESX host, this means that every host will function as its own reference host. After creating all the host profiles,  the individual  profiles can be customized. In this step we’re going to customize every individual host profile and change the setting where a user is prompted for an IP address, these prompts must be replaced with a specific fixed setting. The prompts are typically found at for instance the service console and the kernel port group.  When one of your ESX servers is broken you just have to add an empty host to the cluster and make it compliant with one of your disaster recovery templates. There’s also the possibility to export the disaster recovery host profile to an VMware Profile Format XML file. Steven Jans thanks for the inspiration.

At NeoSphere’s core is Neocleus’ second generation pioneering client virtualization technology; a Type 1 hypervisor that runs directly on the bare metal of the client hardware.  Leveraging the hypervisor, virtual machinesare distributed to PCs where they execute locally in isolated VMs.  Isolation of VMs provides a robust and secure client computing environment and ensures problems that surface in one VM (such as a virus attack or an OS failure) cannot bleed into the other VMs on that computer.

For end users, NeoSphere turns a single laptop or desktop into a multi OS machine. Users can seamlessly move between environments without any degradation in performance or user experience. For instance, if a user has a touch screen monitor on their physical machine, it will operate with native performance within NeoSphere. In addition, NeoSphere delivers the broadest client hardware support in the industry. As a result, IT addresses end user needs with greater ease.

http://www.neocleus.com

Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced is a Windows Profile Management solution which solves a lot of issues and optimizes the overall user experience. This is achieved by decoupling and segmenting personal application settings from the underlying Windows OS and profile, making these settings available cross-Windows platform and creating a consistent user experience no matter what Windows OS the user is working on.

The approach for the Windows XP to Windows 7 migration is pretty straightforward and consists of the following steps.

Implement Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced in your current Windows XP environment.

• Install the FlexEngine (tiny MSI) on each endpoint.
• Configure the FlexEngine through Active Directory Group Policy with help of the provided ADM template.
• Make sure the FlexEngine runs at Logon and Logoff for all users. (e.g. Logon and Logoff scripts).
• Use the Flex Profiles Management Console to create application-specific configuration files for the application settings you want to “decouple” from the Windows Profile.

From this point on, the application settings you configured will be stored outside the Windows profile once a user logs off, on a location you configured (e.g. homedrive). Let users work in this situation for such a period of time that you are sure that all the configured application settings are “decoupled” for all users.

When teaching classes I always show my students how to build up their own vSphere home lab just to run through the labs again or because it’s so cool to do a VMotion at home. One of my students has sent me an email with a link to a really nice device that can save you lots of money on your energy bill. Jean-Marc Zohlandt has bought the IP Boot Manager 9280 and is powering on his machines from a remote location only when they need to be powered on.

IP Boot Manager acts as a manager for your PC & Server . It handles all the ESX servers and storage with just one Internet Browser Screen and a simple connection to Internet. You can remote control & access the power + Reset and schedule daily server actions.

It saves manpower and time during unmanned periods. No more driving to the server room for a reset. IP Boot Manager 9280 is a unique device designed to help you manage up to 8 separate servers with one IP address. With this device you can control Power (On/Off), Reset, Schedule daily server actions and Auto ping (Watch Dog) your ESX servers.

With this blog post title I’m following the footsteps of my virtualization friends Jason Boche and Duncan Epping. I’ve passed the VMware VCDX Design exam yesterday with a score of 362.

I’m not the only one who has passed the exam this week. Congratulations go out to Scott_lowe, FrankDenneman and VirtualKenneth.

I’ve used WIKI to prepare for this exam, just look up every interesting word you can find in the exam blue print.

The next public defenses will be offered at Partner Exchange in February in the US. More information will come out Mid November.

The purpose of the Net2Display™ Remoting standard is to provide efficient remoting of computer display and I/O capabilities across local and wide area computer networks. Supported I/O capabilities include keyboards, pointers, audio and USB attached peripheral devices. Net2Display Remoting is designed to be capable of responsiveness, performance and full motion video user experience comparable to a local PC.

http://www.vesa.org/Standards/summary/2009_10b.htm

One of the coolest PowerShell scripters in the universe has just released version 14 of his VESI PowerPack. I’m talking about a fellow vExpert Alan Renouf, he created a real cool VESI PowerPack which can be downloaded freely at his website. This PowerPack is able to check a lot of things in your VMware environment like showing  a list of VMs with inconsistent folder names, ESX NTP settings, Primary HA Nodes and Last VMs created....

Alan invited me to the beta, so the only thing I had to do is upgrade the PowerPack. It’s as simple as one, two,  three.  There’s only one little problem, I have  to recapture a lot of screenshots for my upcoming VESI presentation at the Dutch VMUG the 11th of December.

This book provides a look into real-world use of VMware ESX and ESXi, with step-by-step solutions for problems that occur in a wide range of environments. Written by experts with experience using VMware in a production environment, VMware Cookbook shares tips and tricks earned through trial and error, and supplies the background information you need to apply them.
 
If you want to gain insight into the real-world uses of VMware ESX and ESXi, this book provides scores of step-by-step solutions for working with these products in a wide range of network environments. You'll not only learn the basics -- how to pool resources from hardware servers, computer clusters, networks, and storage, and then distribute them among virtual machines -- but also the stumbling blocks you'll encounter when you monitor systems, troubleshoot problems, and deal with security.

In addition to the recipes, VMware Cookbook includes background information to help you determine your virtualization needs. You'll come to view VMware as part of the real environment, alongside operating systems, storage, and logical and physical network components.

By Ryan Troy, Matthew Helmke
Publisher:O'Reilly Media
Released:October 2009
Pages:304

I created my first VESI PowerPack with a little help from Alan Renouf, Darin Pendergraft and Carter Shanklin. Before I’m going to show off, first let’s explain what a PowerPack actually is.
A PowerPack is a collection of PowerShell scripts that are used to extend the Virtualization EcoShell administrative console. These scripts are stored inside of nodes, links or actions all of which are used to add functionality into the console.



Carters Shanklin’s WebEx sessions are awesome, he demoed a well written series of PowerShell scripts. With one of his scripts you’re able to collect the %RDY time statistics for all your Virtual Machines. The most common cause of high ready time is trying to get too much work out of too little hardware. Often this condition is observable when ready time is high and total host CPU utilization is also very high. The only fix for this is to back off the load on the system. VMs should be migrated off or processor resources should be increased. I combined Carter’s script with a new feature in the Virtualization EcoShell and created my first PowerPack.

If you’re interested in creating your own PowerPack take a look at the “PowerGUI Basic PowerPack Authoring” created by Darin Pendergraft. Also keep an eye on Alan Renouf’s website http://www.virtu-al.net/ , he’s going to launch a real cool VESI PowerPack with all his PowerShell scripts, I’ve received the beta and it already looks impressive.

 Here's my PowerPack: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/uploads/NTPRO.NL.powerpack

I’ve received a real good PowerPoint presentation from David Bieneman over at LiquidwareLabs. User Experience (UX) Management – Methodology and solutions to deliver the best available current and next generation desktop experience.  Successful UX Management speeds adoption, lowers costs, and increases user productivity.