Eric Sloof

VMware ESX4 and the new vCenter server both offer a lot of new  SDK properties and methods. One of the new methods is CreateScreenshot_Task which is part of the  ManagedObjectReference:VirtualMachine. This method creates a screenshot of the virtual machine console, the image is saved as a portable network graphics (.png) file in the virtual machine folder. This features is normally used by HA Virtual Machine Monitoring. The Virtual Machine Monitoring feature uses the heartbeat information that VMware Tools captures as a proxy for guest operating system availability. This allows VMware HA automatically to reset or restart individual virtual machines that have lost their ability to heartbeat. Before resetting or restarting the Virtual Machine the vCenter server creates a snapshot of a possible BSOD.  I created a PowerShell script which initiates and copies the screenshots of 9 Virtual Machines. The screenshots are presented in a user interface constructed with Sapien's free PrimalForms. The PowerShell code is still rough and can be improved dramatically.

 

 

Improved large-scale management is possible with vCenter Server since it is designed from the ground up to handle the largest IT environments. A single instance of vCenter Server 4.0 manages up to 300 hosts and 3000 virtual machines and with Linked Mode you can manage up to 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual machines across 10 vCenter Server instances. VMware HA and DRS clusters can support up to 32 hosts. All vCenter Server instances in a linked‐mode group can access a common view of the global data. The vSphere Client connects to other vCenter Servers using the connection information retrieved from ADAM.

With Linked mode it’s possible to create global role definitions, searches for inventory items across multiple vCenter Server instances, and a license model across multiple vCenter Servers.

I delivered my first “vSphere 4 what’s new” training this week. During the last lab, the students managed to configure VMware Fault Tolerance. After powering down one of the ESX servers the protected virtual machine switched over to the second ESX server. FT works fabulous, you can use the following checklist to make sure you configure FT the right way. Continue reading "Fault Tolerance Checklist" »

I’m in the middle of delivering the “VMware vSphere 4 : What’s New” course. This hands-on training explores the new features of vSphere 4 as well as how to upgrade to vSphere 4. I made a little movie with my Mino Flip. In this video you’ll see the complete vmguru.nl crew. :-)

At the end of the day, Erik Scholten a Solution Architect for Centric Managed ICT Services, interviewed me about my about the first vSphere training day. You can watch the complete interview here.

DB2 Express-C 9.5.2 (free to develop, free to deploy, free to distribute) contains a full-function DB2 data server, which provides an entry-level product for the Small and Medium Business (SMB) market. It comes with simplified packaging, and is easy to transparently install from within an application. It is available on Linux and Windows platforms, is fully compatible with, scalable to, and has all the autonomic manageability features of its higher priced family of offerings.

These documents describe how to configure an IBM DB2 v9.5 for Linux, Unix, and Windows (LUW) Data Server to Work with vCenter Server. These configuration tasks are mandatory to use a DB2 database with vCenter Server.

db2_prereq_connection_configuration.txt

DB_and_schema_creation_scripts_DB2.txt

After creating a Distributed Switch I was looking at my storage and noticed a new folder called “.dvsData”. It looks like this folders contains the configuration of the Distributed Switch. I think it will be used when the vCenter server is down. I extracted one of the files so you can take a look at it. 134 :-)

I’m prepping the upcoming delivery of the “What’s New in VMware vSphere 4” training course. I decided to migrate the existing virtual adapters like the kernel port group and the service console port group from a vNetwork Standard Switch to a vNetwork Distributed Switch. I also switched over the virtual machines by configuring virtual machine networking on a vNetwork Distributed Switch.

This is a short walk through from the ESX configuration guide.

Continue reading "Migrate an Existing Virtual Adapter to a..." »

Photos from all over the World (Aarhus, Austin, Bulgaria, Israel, Lausanne, London , Pune and Palo Alto Behind the Scenes) taken by VMware employees, kicking off the vSphere launch.

Continue reading "vSphere Regional Event Photos" »

Chad Sakac, EMC Vice President, VMware Technology Alliance, explains the tight integration between EMC PowerPath/VE and VMware vSphere and points out its dramatic performance and availability potential. Learn how your infrastructure behind vSphere can meet your performance and availability requirements.

PowerPath/VE will be available in June. Pricing starts at $2,100 per physical server for new PowerPath customers and $1,430 for current customers.

 

In VMware vSphere Web Access (which looks very cool btw), administrators can generate a customized Desktop Shortcut to share with other users. You can generate a Desktop Shortcut that displays only the console, enables or disables access to the workspace, or enables or disables access to the virtual machine inventory.

To activate Web Access on a VMware vSphere ESX server, you have to check if the Web Access daemon is running with : service vmware-webAccess status. If it isn’t started, you can start it with the  following command : service vmware-webAccess start. You can now log in to the VMware vSphere ESX Server using your browser. Select a Virtual Machine and click; Generate Virtual Machine Desktop Shortcut. Et voilà, there’s a link on your desktop.