New in VMware vSphere 4.0

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.0
8-way Virtual SMP — ESX(i) 4.0 supports virtual machines with up to eight virtual CPUs allowing you to run larger CPU-intensive workloads on the VMware ESX platform. See the Guest Operating System Installation Guide for the guest operating systems that fully support SMP http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_admin_guide.pdf
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Shared storage issues

If you are experiencing shared storage issues, whether it be SAN, iSCSI, or NFS, take a look at VMware KB article 1003659 entitled Identifying shared storage issues with ESX 3.x. This article contains several links to troubleshoot shared storage issues, as well as a handy flowchart.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003659
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Name services

/etc/nsswitch.conf

The name service switch file determines which name services a system uses to search for information, and in which order the name services are searched. Out of the box, ESX builds an nsswitch.conf file which is auto generated by esxcfg-auth.
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SQL Server Workload Consolidation

Whitepaper: SQL Server Workload Consolidation

While most database servers are lightly loaded, larger database workloads can be resource-intensive, exhibiting high I/O rates or consuming large amounts of memory. This whitepaper provides a good methodology for testing SQL server workloads to determine VM candidacy and placement:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/SQL_Server_consolidation.pdf
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VMware Tools for Linux

VMware Tools for Linux comes in the form of two available packages: The RPM Installer (has an .RPM file extension) and the TAR Installer (has a .tar.gz extension). Some will argue that the RPM installer is easier to use, however, not all Linux distros can take advantage of the RPM installer.

http://pubs.vmware.com/server1/vm/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=vm&file=tools_server.4.12.html
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Lab Manager Media library

By default, when files are added to the Lab Manager Media library, the media is shared with all Lab Manager users in all organizations. However, user access can be restricted to media files by Organizations (controlled by Lab Manager Administrators or Organization Administrators) or through Sharing rights which the media owner controls.
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VCB framework logs

The location of the VCB framework logs can be a bit of a mystery if you've searched in the usual locations such as Program Files or Documents and Settings. They are actually located in %windir%\temp
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LDAP connections

VMware recommends making Lab Manager LDAP connections at the root of Active Directory (ie. DC=domain,DC=com). The reason for this is that if specifying an explicit OU in the binding string may later end up blocking access to users or groups outside of that OU and a binding string change will be required which could be disruptive to the existing Lab Manager environment.
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Lab Manager Terminology

Lab Manager Terminology

A "Deployed" (powered on) "Configuration" (which from the surface looks somewhat like a vApp group of VMs) consists of one or more virtual machines (up to 20 in Lab Manager 3) that are based on a virtual machine "Template". Configurations are created only in the "Workspace" and a "Storage Lease" is specified. Configurations to be shared with other team members are saved to the "Library".
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vSwitch Security

vSwitch Security Attributes & Defaults

Forged Transmits - Allows the guest VM OS to change its MAC address; impacts outbound frames - default: Allow
Promiscuous Mode - Allows the guest VM to listen to (capture) packets destined for other vSwitch ports - default: Reject
MAC Address Changes - Allows the guest VM OS to change its MAC address; impacts inbound frames - default: Allow
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Virtualized Terminal/Citrix

Virtualized Terminal/Citrix servers may experience unwanted proliferation of user profile folders which are not removed after users log off. When VMware Tools is installed, it appends a value in the Windows registry to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\NetworkProvider\Order\ProviderOrder
The value of hgfs is appended. This causes an irremovable file in each user profile. Remove the hgfs value to resolve the issue.
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Default SSL certificate

You can replace the default SSL certificate which ships with vCenter with a certificate signed by a Microsoft Certificate Authority, however it is a fairly lengthy process. The steps can found in the following thread (follow the 11 steps from user 'astrolab'):

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/88053
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N+1 cluster

N+1 cluster architecture allows workload demands to be met while 1 host is dysfunctional. Capacity plan or scale your high availability virtual infrastructure for minimally N+1 based on peak load numbers, not average load numbers. At no time do you want to dip below N+1 availability. That is a very difficult position to be in.
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ESXTOP workspace

Saving your ESXTOP workspace
If there is a particular group of metrics you commonly add/remove in ESXTOP, you'll notice you have to configure them each time you run ESXTOP. You can save your workspace permanently by running ESXTOP, choosing your preferred settings, and then hit the 'W' key to save the settings to a configuration file located at ~/.esxtop3rc. Future ESXTOP sessions will be run with your preferred settings.
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Multivendor Post

A “Multivendor Post” to help iSCSI customers using VMware

Shared storage is the key to unlocking many of the VMware Virtual Infrastructure components. EMC, VMware, NetApp, Dell/EqualLogic, and HP/Lefthand all conspired to create one of the most informative VMware on iSCSI documents available.

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/01/a-multivendor-post-to-help-our-mutual-iscsi-customers-using-vmware.html
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Virtual Infrastructure 3

On this day in 2006, VMware releases Virtual Infrastructure 3 which included ESX 3.0 and VirtualCenter 2.0. Key features included NAS and iSCSI shared storage support, clusters, DRS, HA, Resource Pools, VCB, and a FlexLM centralized license server.
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Enable SSH access to ESX3i

How to enable SSH access to ESX3i (unsupported):
1) On the ESXi console press ALT+F1
2) Type the word unsupported
3) Type the root password
4) Use the vi editor: vi /etc/inetd.conf
5) Find the line with #ssh and remove the # symbol
6) Save the file with the keystrokes :wq!
7a) ESX3.5 or U1: Restart the management service with /sbin/services.sh restart
7b) ESX3.5U2 & newer: Restart the host or kill the inetd process
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Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Virtual CPUs per VM:
ESX(i) 4.0: 8 vCPUs
ESX(i) 3.5 Update 4: 4 vCPUs
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100% CPU

Server administrators were programmed to believe 90% CPU utilization was way over utilized. The truth of the matter is that any server not running at 100% CPU utilization is wasting time executing idle threads. This is one of the reasons we virtualize. To contrast that statement a bit, some CPU headroom should exist for HA failover and N+1 configurations. Find a good balance.
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Service Console on ESX

The Service Console on ESX is eventually going away. The writing is on the wall. I estimate the next major version of ESX won't offer a Service Console. While many of the tips in this calendar are geared towards administration via the Service Console, it would be beneficial for you start exploring alternative management and automation techniques (such as host profiles, vMA, and PowerShell) sooner rather than later.
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HA restart policy

It's important to note that the HA restart policy for VMs is designed to work only when the VMs are powered off. Technically this is due to file locking, but logically speaking, if the isolation policy for an HA host is configured to leave the VMs running, then for obvious reasons we don't want HA to come along and recycle the VMs.
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What's New in VMware vSphere 4.0

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.0
VMware Paravirtualized SCSI (PVSCSI) — Paravirtualized SCSI adapters are high-performance storage adapters that offer greater throughput and lower CPU utilization for virtual machines. These adapters are best suited for environments in which guest applications are very I/O intensive. See vSphere Basic System Administration http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_admin_guide.pdf
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Running out of datastore disk space

If you're running out of datastore disk space, consider configuring your VMs with 100% virtual memory reservation as a short term solution. Doing so will zero the VMkernel swap file on the datastore which is equal to the amount of RAM assigned to the VM.

The good news is that this change can be made while the VM is running
The bad news is that the VMkernel swap file isn't deflated until the VM is powered off
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Enable daemons/services

Permanently enable daemons/services in the ESX Service Console with the following command (the numbers specify runlevels at which to start the daemons/services):

chkconfig --level 345 [daemon/service] on

ie.
chkconfig --level 345 snmpd on
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NFS datastores

One of the advantages to using NFS datastores in ESX(i) is that newly created VMs on the NFS storage default to creating .vmdk files in a thin format. This a type of thin provisioning and storage virtualization.
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Check your ESX host

Check your ESX host NTP offset, as well as gaining other valuable NTP daemon diagnostic information, at the Service Console with the following command:

ntpq -p

If you receive the error "ntpq: read: Connection refused", it means the NTP daemon isn't running or configured properly.
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VMware vSphere 4.0

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.0
Virtual Disk Thin Provisioning — Enables virtual machines to utilize storage space on an as-needed basis, further increasing utilization of storage for virtual environments. See the ESX Configuration Guide and the ESXi Configuration Guide http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_esx_server_config.pdf http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_esxi_server_config.pdf
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vCenter Server builds

Recent vCenter Server builds (English) and release dates
vCenter 4.0, 5/21/09, Build 162902
vCenter 2.5 Update 5, 7/10/09, Build 174768
vCenter 2.5 Update 4, 2/23/09, Build 147633
vCenter 2.5 Update 3, 10/3/08, Build 119598
vCenter 2.5 Update 2, 7/25/08, Build 104263
vCenter 2.5 Update 1, 4/10/08, Build 84767
vCenter 2.5, 12/10/07, Build 64201
See also http://bit.ly/aK8zQ
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Virtual machine

By default, when you add a virtual machine to a configuration in Lab Manager, the virtual machine is a linked clone that refers to the base disk of the virtual machine template and uses delta disks to describe the difference between the virtual machine template and the virtual machine. This amounts to a lot of disk savings but under certain conditions, linked clone performance can degrade over time.
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