Eric Sloof

VMware vSphere 5.1 continues to enhance the performance features and capabilities of the vSphere platform, making it the most robust and highest-performing cloud platform. vSphere 5.1 supports even larger virtual machines and physical hosts to accommodate even the most demanding of workloads. It also introduces several new features that reduce latency and increase throughput for network, storage and compute.

The following are some of the performance highlights in vSphere 5.1:

• VMware vSphere Web Client

• VMware vCenter™ Single Sign-On server scalability

• vCenter Server database and statistics collection enhancements

• 64-way vCPU scalability

• 256 pCPU support

• New physical processor enablement

• Memory overhead reduction

• Virtualized CPU performance counters

• Latency setting

• VMware vSphere Storage I/O Control enhancements

• VMware vSphere Storage DRS enhancements

• 16GB Fibre Channel support

• Hardware iSCSI jumbo frames support

• Single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV)

• VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) scalability improvements

• vMotion enhancements

• VMware vSphere Storage vMotion enhancements

• 3D graphics

• VMware vSphere APIs – Array Integration (VAAI) snapshots
• VXLAN

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/Whats-New-VMware-vSphere-51-Performance-Technical-Whitepaper.pdf

With VMware vSphere  5.1, VMware is releasing a new backup and recovery solution for virtual machines called vSphere Data Protection (VDP). This solution is fully integrated with VMware vCenter Server and provides agentless, disk-based backup of virtual machines to deduplicated storage.

Benefits of VDP include the following:

• It ensures fast, efficient protection for virtual machines even if they are powered off.
• It uses patented deduplication technology across all backup jobs, significantly reducing disk space consumption.
• VMware vSphere APIs – Data Protection (VADP) and Changed Block Training (CBT) are utilized to reduce load on the vSphere host and minimize backup windows requirements.
• It performs full virtual machine and File-Level Restore (FLR) without installing an agent in every virtual machine.
• Installation and configuration is simplified using an appliance form factor.
• Management is performed utilizing the VMware vSphere Web Client.
• The VDP appliance and its backups are protected using a checkpoint and rollback mechanism.
• Windows and Linux files can easily be restored by the end user without a Web browser.

This paper presents an overview of the architecture, deployment, configuration, and management of VDP.

Trust the bestselling Official Cert Guide series from VMware Press to help you learn, prepare, and practice for VCP5 exam success. They are the only VMware authorized self-study books and are built with the objective of providing assessment, review, and practice to help ensure you are fully prepared for your certification exam.

The Official VCP5 Certification Guide presents you with an organized test preparation routine through the use of proven series elements and techniques. “Do I Know This Already?” quizzes open each chapter and enable you to decide how much time you need to spend on each section. Exam topic lists make referencing easy. Chapter-ending Exam Preparation Tasks help you drill on key concepts you must know thoroughly.

• Master VMware VCP510 exam topics
• Assess your knowledge with chapter-opening quizzes
• Review key concepts with exam preparation tasks
• Practice with realistic exam questions on the DVD
  
  

The Official VCP5 Certification Guide focuses specifically on the objectives for the VCP510 VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 5. VMware Certified Instructor (VCI) Bill Ferguson shares preparation hints and test-taking tips, helping you identify areas of weakness and improve both your conceptual knowledge and hands-on skills. Material is presented in a concise manner, focusing on increasing your understanding and retention of exam topics.

The companion DVD contains a powerful Pearson IT Certification Practice Test engine that enables you to focus on individual topic areas or take a complete, timed exam. The assessment engine also tracks your performance and provides feedback on a module-by-module basis, laying out a complete assessment of your knowledge to help you focus your study where it is needed most. 

Well-regarded for its level of detail, assessment features, comprehensive design scenarios, and challenging review questions and exercises, this official study guide helps you master the concepts and techniques that will enable you to succeed on the exam the first time.

The official study guide helps you master all the topics on the VCP510 exam, including:

• Understanding how virtualization can best be integrated into today's real-world IT environments
• Recognizing what to change, and what to leave alone
• Planning, installing, configuring, and upgrading vCenter Server and VMware ESXi Planning and configuring vSphere networking and storage
• Deploying and Administering Virtual Machines and vApps
• Establishing and Maintaining Service Levels
• Performing basic troubleshooting
• Monitoring vSphere implementations
• Managing vCenter Server alarms
• Preparing for the future of VMware virtualization
  
  

VMware Mirage conceptually splits the PC into layers, combining a centrally managed Base Image (OS and core applications) with two layers from the endpoint: user-installed applications and machine state, and end user data and settings. These three components form an individually managed, centrally-stored Centralized Virtual Desktop (CVD). CVDs are hardware-agnostic, and can be easily migrated from one desktop (physical or virtual) to another, creating a wide range of use cases. The VMware Mirage Client runs a local cache of this CVD directly on the endpoint (virtual or physical) hardware, using local compute resources to enable offline productivity and ensure predictable, native PC performance regardless of network connectivity.

VMware Mirage’s Distributed Desktop Virtualization architecture includes VMware Mirage Server in the data center to centralize desktop management, protection, and support; Mirage Client to create a local cache for optimal user experience at the endpoint, and advanced DDO technology to optimize bi-directional synchronization and fast desktop streaming over the WAN.

More videos:

In-Place Windows XP to Windows 7 Migration using VMware Mirage - Watch a Windows XP endpoint get upgraded in-place to Windows 7 with zero touch by IT, and without affecting user files or profiles, by using the VMware Mirage solution.

Single Image Management with VMware Mirage - See how VMware Mirage can solve your singe image management needs for physical laptops and desktops, and un-managed virtual machines.

The RB751G is the wireless SOHO Gigabit AP you have been waiting for. It has five Gigabit Ethernet ports, one USB 2.0 port and a high power 30dBi/1W 802.11b/g/n wireless AP with antennas built in. It’s also possible to connect an external MMCX antenna to replace one of the built in antennas. The device is very small and will look good in any home or office, wall mounting anchor holes are provided. Package contains RouterBOARD 751G-2HnD in a plastic case and power adapter.

USB Network Gate is a solution which allows sharing any number of USB ports and devices on your computer over LAN/WAN/VLAN/VPN/Internet. Remote virtual machines can connect to your computer (server) and communicate with USB devices, plugged into shared remote ports, as if those devices were connected directly to virtual machines. All applications that work with remote USB devices won't see the difference and will treat them as local ones.

As USB Network Gate for Windows/Linux shares USB ports, not devices themselves, you can plug any USB device into shared USB port, then unplug this device and plug in another one, and it will automatically appear at the remote virtual machine without any additional configuration.

Currently, 3 versions of the product are available: for Windows, Linux and Mac. Different combinations of server-client model can be applied, for example, client may have USB Network Gate installed on Linux, and server - on Windows, or vice versa.
With USB Network Gate for Windows/Linux you can:

• Share USB devices on the local PC (server) so that they become available for usage on the remote PC (client)
• Share any number of USB devices
• Freely unplug USB device and plug in another one into shared USB port on the server - the device will automatically appear on the client
• Give custom names to your USB devices (label them) to let clients easily identify them
• Create callback connection (connection with a client initiated from the server side) - OEM License
• Set authorization password and enable traffic encryption
• Change traffic encryption, authorization settings and custom names on the go for already shared devices (Linux version)
• Disable current connection from the server side
• Access remote shared USB devices from virtual machine, remote desktop or blade server
• Access remote shared USB devices via Wi-Fi
• Two types of connection with remote devices are available: "Connect" and "Connect once", the latter allowing client to establish one-time connection without attempts to restore it if broken
• See who currently occupies shared USB device from other clients' side

vOPS Server Explorer 5.1 (VKernel's free tool suite) introduces improvements to existing utilities, and a new utility, Environment Explorer, which uses the same analytics and advisory engine from the paid vOPS Server Standard product to provide virtual administrators with a rapid assessment of the state of their environment. Specifically, Environment Explorer allows system administrators to:

• Identify critical VM configuration errors such as memory limits and old snapshots that will severely affect performance and can be especially hard to track down and solve
• Recognize performance bottlenecks from high CPU ready, memory swapping, device latency and other causes
• Detect inefficiency/waste created by VMs with CPU, memory and storage over allocation
• Find available capacity expressed as the number of VMs that can be deployed without causing performance bottlenecks
• Pinpoint oversubscription of CPU, memory and storage resources and whether the over-allocation is impacting performance

Over a month ago Christian Hammond (chipx86) has released the first technology preview of WSX. This tool enables users to access the console of their shared virtual machines via a web browser without installing any plug-ins or web controls.  This service renders an HTML5 web page that can connect to your workstation hosts or ESXi servers (requires vSphere 5.0), enumerate the available virtual machines and allow you to power them on and interact with the desktop.

The July tech preview holds many improvements:

• Improved Home Page
• Improved Server Page
• Big Honkin’ Power Button
• Better Touch Input
• Mouse Wheels
• Better Retina Support
• SSL Support
• Easier Installation
• Smarter Defaults
• Performance Tweaks
• Bug Fixes
  

If you're intrested and want to give it a try, just hop over to the ChipLog website and find out the latest news and downloads.