vCenter Versions

vCenter Server 2.0 and later may be upgraded to vCenter Server 4.0. Earlier versions of vCenter Server must first be upgraded to 2.0 prior to making the jump to 4.0.
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Expiration

When a Lab Manager deployment lease expires, Lab Manager automatically undeploys the Configuration or VM Template.

When a storage lease expires, Lab Manager either deletes the expired VM Template or Configuration, or marks the VM Template or Configuration for deletion. This decision depends on whether or not there are child dependencies involved which should not be deleted.
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Decrease VM evacuation times

Decrease VM evacuation times by increasing the amount of concurrent VMotion migrations per host (unsupported):
-On your vCenter server, edit c:\docs & settings\all users\application data\vmware\vmware virtualcenter\vpdx.cfg
-Insert the following lines between the [vpdx] XML tags:
[ResourceManager]
[maxCostPerHost]24[/maxCostPerHost]
[/ResourceManager]
Cold Migration has a cost of 1. Hot Migration has a cost of 4.
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vSphere VM boot order

The default vSphere VM boot order is:
1. Removable Devices
2. Hard Disk (virtual)
3. CD-ROM
4. Network
A VM with no OS will attempt to boot from Removable Devices, CD-ROM, or Network, in that order. During POST, you may change the boot order temporarily with [ESC] or [F12] and permanently with [F2]
You can also modify the VM settings (Options tab|Boot Options) to force the VM to boot into the BIOS or delay the boot.
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Decoding PSOD Messages

Decoding PSOD (Purple Screen Of Death) Messages

If you work with ESX long enough, you may encounter a PSOD. It's the equivalent to the BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) in Windows. Use the following VMware KB article, Decoding Purple Screens, to help make sense of the problem:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004250
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Lab Manager Configuration

When a user creates a Configuration in Lab Manager, that user becomes its owner. The owner, or a user with the Administrator View and Control right, can give other users access to the configuration.

Configuration ownership can be assigned to another user in the same organization as the current owner by navigating to the Configuration property sheet and clicking the Change Owner button.
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vSMP

vSMP

For scheduling a VM with multiple vCPUs, ESX2 used the "Strict Co-Scheduling" technique where a skew value for each vCPU was tracked & increased when vCPUs were at different progress levels. With enough skew, the entire VM was descheduled.

The co-scheduling algorithm was improved to a "Relaxed Co-Scheduling" scheme in ESX3 resulting in a significant reduction of co-scheduling fragmentation.
See http://bit.ly/yplYU
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Memory and processors

Identify the relationship between memory and processors in an ESX host. A good rule of thumb is 4-6 vCPUs per host processor. A good rule of thumb for 32-bit VMs is 4GB RAM per processor, however, I find this isn't nearly enough when virtualizing 64-bit operating systems. It also depends on your desired consolidation ratios.
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Microsoft Cluster Services

Make vCenter 2.5 highly available by using Microsoft Cluster Services (MSCS) by following VMware's documentation here: http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1111.pdf

There is a vCenter 2.0 version of the document as well here:
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/VC_MSCS.pdf

To cluster vCenter 4.0, there are several additional steps to follow.
See http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010550
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Update Manager plugin failures

Update Manager plugin failures
Users of vCenter 2.5.x and VUM may find this familiar. Your VUM plugin becomes disabled and as a result your ability to manage VUM from the Virtual Infrastructure Client ceases to exist. Make sure your VUM datastore is available as well as not scanning the VUM download repository with anti-virus software. vCenter 2.5.0 Update 4 seems to have cured the problem altogether. KB1007099
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Access a CD/DVD

Access a CD/DVD from the ESX COS
Find your CD/DVD ROM device by issuing the command: ll /dev |grep cdrom
Mount the CD/DVD ROM device by issuing the command (as an example): mount /dev/scd0 /mnt/cdrom
-=or=- mount /dev/hda /mnt/cdrom
You should now see your CD/DVD media mounted at /mnt/cdrom. View its contents by issuing the command ll /mnt/cdrom
Unmount the device with the command umount /mnt/cdrom
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Update Manager patches

To change the download location for Update Manager patches:
Open C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager\vci-integrity.xml.
Search for [patchStore] XML tags. You'll see something similar to:
[patchStore]C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Update Manager\Data\[/patchStore]
Replace the path with the preferred path.
Save, close the file, and reboot.
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004152
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Why Choose VMware?

Why Choose VMware?
Make an informed decision on what virtualization solution is best for you and/or your business.
The "Why Choose VMware" web page:
http://www.vmware.com/technology/whyvmware/

6 reasons to choose VMware fact sheet - Good discussion points for use in your manager's office, on the bus or train, waiting at the airport, at a VMUG, or on a first date: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmware_advantage.pdf
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Disk timeout

One of the items that the VMware Tools installation performs on a Windows VM is the increase of the disk timeout value to 60 seconds. This helps the OS tolerate a storage path failover which is not instant. The registry value is located at:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk\TimeOutValue
The value is set to 60 Decimal/x03c Hex
MSCS installation will change this value to 20
Windows default is 10
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FT Problem Decoder

FT Problem Decoder Chart

Receiving errors while trying to configure FT on a VM and stumped as to the reason why? Examine the vCenter server log in your vSphere Client and find the entry when the FT error occurred. Note the "reason = " line and cross reference it in the following URL:

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk400pubs/ReferenceGuide/vim.fault.VmFaultToleranceConfigIssue.ReasonForIssue.html
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Configuration Maximums

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Number of vCPUs per host:
ESX(i) 4.0: 512 vCPUs per host
ESX(i) 3.5 Update 4: 192 vCPUs per host
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IOMETER

The mostly widely used and accepted standard for disk I/O performance, benchmarking, and comparisons is a free tool named IOMETER (ESXTOP would also be used for ESX environments).

IOMETER is available at: http://www.iometer.org/

How does your storage stack up against others in the community? Check out this thread and compare:
http://communities.vmware.com/message/584154
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Hyper-Threading

Hyper-Threading (HT) has been supported in ESX since version 2.x. The ESX scheduler is aware of HT & treats logical & physical cores differently. vCPUs requesting resources are assigned first to physical cores until all physical cores are loaded. Future vCPU requests are assigned to logical (HT) cores. By this method, HT has no impact on performance until more vCPUs are concurrently executing than exist physical cores.
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On this date in 2009

On this date in 2009, VMware releases the next generation vCenter Lab Manager 4, and two new brand products vCenter AppSpeed and vCenter Chargeback. The releases hit the streets with list prices of $1,495/cpu, $1,250/cpu, and $750/cpu respectively.

In addition, the Stage Manager product is retired as its own SKU and is rolled entirely into the Lab Manager 4 product. This is why the Lab Manager list price went up.
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VMware vSphere 4.0

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.0
VMDirectPath for Virtual Machines - Enhances CPU efficiency in handling workloads that require constant access to I/O devices by allowing VMs to directly access physical hardware. 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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mountvm.exe

mountvm.exe is a VCB framework tool you can use to perform file level restores of VMs that were backed up using VCB. The tool is used to mount .vmdk virtual disk files on the VCB proxy host where the individual files can then be restored via file copy one at a time or many at a time.

mountvm.exe can be found on the VCB proxy host by default in C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework
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On this day in 2006

On this day in 2006, VMware releases Server 1.0 which essentially replaced GSX Server. Key features included background snapshot technology and experimental support for 2-way vSMP. The fact that this product was released for FREE was rejoiced by many but upset a handful of customers who had just prior purchased GSX Server for thousands of dollars.
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On this day in 2008

On this day in 2008, VMware co-founder, President and CEO Diane Greene was unexpectedly fired by the VMware Board of Directors and replaced by Paul Maritz, a 14-year Microsoft veteran who was heading EMC's cloud computing business unit.
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Intra-vSwitch traffic

Network traffic between 2 VMs on the same vSwitch on the same ESX(i) host flows over the host hardware system bus and will not traverse the physical network. The processing of intra-vSwitch traffic is handled by CPU0 in the host. This is why it is possible for 2 VMs on the same vSwitch to communicate at greater than Gb speeds.

All of the above assumes there is no VLAN tagging involved.
See http://bit.ly/yZaG3
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New Update Manager

Brand New Update Manager not downloading host updates?

Be sure you've added at least one ESX/ESXi host to the inventory. Per VMware KB 1008308, ESX/ESXi hosts must be present in vCenter Server before Update Manager will download the update metadata and the updates themselves.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008308
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Consolidation

In Lab Manager, consolidating a virtual machine can take an extended period of time, depending on the disk size and storage performance. Consolidation may improve VM disk performance, however, it reduces the free space on datastores because the virtual machine no longer benefits from delta disks. VMs in both Workspace and Library configurations can be consolidated. Only undeployed VMs can be consolidated.
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Upgrading

If you are upgrading from vCenter 2.5 to vCenter Server 4.0 and you had previously implemented SSL certificates, be sure to preserve the certificates files because they will be needed during the vCenter Server 4.0 upgrade. The files are located at:

C:\documents and settings\all users\Application Data\vmware\VMware VirtualCenter\SSL\

The three SSL files are:
rui.crt
rui.key
rui.pfx
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Technical Resource documents

VMware Technical Resource documents listing

The following URL provides a comprehensive list of VMware technical documents with links compiled by Rodney Haywood. It's like a table of contents for VMware white papers.
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-2590

For a searchable catalog of white papers from VMware and its partners, head to:
http://vmware.com/resources/techresources/cat/91
See also http://bit.ly/RJO9o
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VMware vSphere 4.0

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.0
High Availability Clustering with Windows Server 2000, 2003, 2008 — Support for MSCS with Windows 2000 and Windows 2003, and Failover Clustering for Windows 2008. For information concerning supported storage arrays, see the vSphere Compatibility Matrixes http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_mscs.pdf http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_compatibility_matrix.pdf
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