Why ESXi?

Why ESXi?
-Smaller hypervisor means faster deployment times
-Smaller hypervisor means less code vulnerability, risk to the environment, and time spent patching the hypervisor
-Smaller hypervisors can be embedded in server hardware
-ESXi free edition lends itself well to rapid and wide spread implementation
-Automation efforts are moving away from the COS (PowerShell, Host Profiles, Distributed Virtual Switch, etc.)
More vQuotes

vCenter Server 4.x installation

During a vCenter Server 4.x installation, verify the vCenter SQL account has DBO rights to the MSDB, vCenter, & Update Manager databases.

During the vCenter 2.5 upgrade process, DBO is needed on the MSDB database only. Granting DBO on the vCenter database in VC 2.5 would typically result in a new parallel set of tables being created in the database & empty Datacenter when all is said & done.
More vQuotes

VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Start saying goodbye to ESX and Service Console only dependent tools. VMware vSphere 4.1 and its subsequent update and patch releases are the last releases to include both ESX and ESXi hypervisor architectures. Future major releases of VMware vSphere will include only the VMware ESXi architecture.

http://bit.ly/9S97Ic
http://www.vmware.com/go/upgradetoesxi
More vQuotes

Configuring ESX(i)

When configuring ESX(i) host hardware, if you're forced to make a decision on how to populate card slots when only a limited number of PCIe slots are available, you are best suited to place storage controllers (ie. HBAs) in the PCIe slots and NIC cards in the slower slots (ie. PCI-X). Storage needs the burst in I/O performance whereas the bus speed of a NIC will rarely be an issue.
More vQuotes

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.
More vQuotes

Adding an ESX(i) host

When adding an ESX(i) host to vCenter Server, the specified root credentials are used temporarily for the purpose of adding the host only. Once the host is added, vCenter establishes its own set of credentials (vpxuser + 32-character complex password) for host communication. This allows the root password on hosts to be changed regularly (a security best practice) without disrupting vCenter management of the host.
More vQuotes

On this day in 2003

On this day in 2003, Hopkinton, Mass. based EMC Corporation announced its plans to purchase VMware, Inc. for $635 million. The purchase was completed January 9th 2004 for $625 million in cash.
More vQuotes

Active Directory

If you plan on integrating Active Directory authentication with ESX Service Console access using esxcfg-auth, you need to control any existing root account in Active Directory. A root account in Active Directory will natively grant root access to the ESX Service Console to whoever knows the AD root password regardless of what the root password is on the ESX host.
More vQuotes

VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Expanded List of Supported Processors - The list of supported processors has been expanded for ESX 4.1. To determine which processors are compatible with this release, use the Hardware Compatibility Guide. Among the supported processors is the Intel Xeon 7500 Series processor, code-named Nehalem-EX (up to 8 sockets).
More vQuotes

Player 1.0

On this day in 2005, VMware released Player 1.0, a FREE desktop hypervisor for Windows and Linux platforms. It's purpose was the running of existing VMs, however it lacked the ability to create VMs and as such it was often likened to Adobe Acrobat Reader. Shortly after its release, users engineered clever ways to create VMs to be used in Player without paying VMware for a licensed VM creation product.
More vQuotes

vSphere

One source reports that, in testing, vSphere was able to drive 9Gbps of iSCSI traffic through a single ESX host. It is unknown if the initiator used during the test was hardware or the VMware supplied swiSCSI adapter.
More vQuotes

On this day in 2007

On this day in 2007, VMware released ESX 3.5/VC 2.5 & introduced ESXi, the industry's first ultra-thin hypervisor. More than 2 months later it was discovered that a corrupted ESX 3.5 ISO image (as indicated by a false MD5SUM hash) had been released into the wild causing issues in some customer Datacenters. VMware released a new ISO correcting the problem on 2/20/08.
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003801

@kculw's birthday also
More vQuotes

N+1 cluster architecture

N+1 cluster architecture allows workload demands to be met while 1 host is non-operational. Capacity plan or scale your high availability virtual infrastructure for minimally N+1 based on a balance of peak and average load numbers. At no time do you want to dip below N+1 availability. That is a very difficult position to be in.
More vQuotes

Logger command

Use the logger command to write log entries to the /var/log/messages log file. This can be useful for scripted installations to confirm sections of the script completed successfully.

i.e.
logger Hello there!

Results in the following entry in /var/log/messages
Jul 26 16:07:23 chewbacca root: Hello there!
More vQuotes

VMware vMotion

In the past, VMware vMotion was licensed for use only at the Enterprise tier. Starting with vSphere, vMotion is also included in the Essentials Plus and Advanced tiers (and of course Enterprise Plus).
More vQuotes

Sysprep

Sysprep file locations and versions

VMware has published KB 1005593 which provides the download URL & destination directory
placement on VMware vCenter Server for Microsoft Sysprep files required for Windows guest customization. General installation instructions are provided as well.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1005593
More vQuotes

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
More vQuotes

vCenter 2.5 to vCenter Server 4.x

If you are upgrading from vCenter 2.5 to vCenter Server 4.x and you had previously implemented SSL certificates, be sure to preserve the certificates files because they will be needed during the vCenter Server 4.x 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
More vQuotes

ESX(i) standard vSwitch

The ESX(i) standard vSwitch allows Egress (outbound) Traffic Shaping.

The vSphere Network Distributed Switch (vDS) allows both Egress (outbound) and Ingress (inbound) Traffic Shaping.

Egress & Ingress are relative to the VM - not the vDS. Egress filtering is applied to traffic from VM to vDS, & Ingress filtering is applied to traffic from vDS to VM. There is no filtering of any traffic between vDS & VMNIC.
More vQuotes

Vreference.com

Whether you're studying for a VMware exam or looking for a good desk reference, you owe it to yourself to check out the reference cards from Forbes Guthrie. Each cheat sheet is jam packed with an incredible amount of information. Print it in duplex mode and laminate it.

http://www.vreference.com/
More vQuotes

Status of all daemons/services

Check the status of all daemons/services in the ESX Service Console with the following command:

service --status-all
More vQuotes

Memory Compression

Memory Compression was introduced in vSphere 4.1. Utilization of compression falls between Ballooning & VMkernel Swap. Pages which would have been swapped out are instead compressed & stored in a compression cache (10% of VM memory) located in the main memory. Access to the page only causes a page decompression which can be an order of magnitude faster than the disk access. This is cool technology!

http://bit.ly/dvGHsp
More vQuotes

ESX Users and Groups

ESX Users and Groups

-Users are stored in the /etc/passwd file
-Groups are stored in the /etc/group file
-Encrypted passwords for the Users are stored in the /etc/shadow file

If you're a Red Hat Enterprise Linux administrator, this should sound strangely familiar to you. But don't assume ESX is Linux. It's not.
More vQuotes

Timekeeping articles

A collection of timekeeping articles from VMware:

http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2009/02/new-timekeeping-articles.html
More vQuotes

Protect VM data

During the installation of ESX, it is extremely important to protect VM data stored on existing volumes. Early versions of ESX would actually destroy LUN data which it discovered during installation. Dominic Rivera outlines several options to protect data, a few of which are automated for unattended installs. Follow the link below and check it out:

http://vmprofessional.com/2009/06/protecting-your-san-luns-during.html
More vQuotes

Licensing In a Virtual Environment

Microsoft Windows Licensing In a Virtual Environment

Windows licenses are tied to physical host hardware, not the VM. This applies to any hypervisor.
-A Windows 2008 Datacenter Edition license entitles an unlimited number of Windows VMs on the host.
-A Windows 2008 Enterprise Edition license entitles up to 4 Windows VMs on the host.
-A Windows 2008 Standard Edition license entitles up to 1 Windows VM on the host.
More vQuotes

@VMwareKB on Twitter

Be the first to see new and updated VMware KB articles by following @VMwareKB on Twitter and subscribing to the following RSS feed:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/VMwareKnowledgebaseWeeklyDigest

Or visit the VMware Weekly KB Digest with your browser at:
http://blogs.vmware.com/kbdigest/
More vQuotes

2TB minus 512B

The maximum virtual disk size allowed in a vSphere virtual machine is 2TB minus 512B. This is true even for VMs living on NFS volumes which aren't restricted by the 2TB -512B VMFS volume size limit. This true for RDMs as well.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf
More vQuotes

Network Communication Port

Network Communication Ports for VMware Virtual Infrastructure
443, 902, 903, 2049, 2050-2250,
3260, 8000, 8042-8045, 27000, 27010

For a few different diagrams, see: http://bit.ly/bd7vXC
Here's another great one, the most thorough yet: http://bit.ly/cgzAbx
More vQuotes

vSphere Host Profiles

vSphere Host Profiles cannot be created from scratch and only two methods exist to create a Host Profile:

1. A Host Profile can be generated from an existing ESX or ESXi host
2. A Host Profile can be imported from a .VPF file which was previously exported

However, once created, Host Profiles can be fine tuned in an editor.
More vQuotes

Know Thy Open Snapshots

Know Thy Open Snapshots
Snapshots are wonderful. With this technology comes the responsibility of using it properly and knowing its limitations. Keep constant track of the snapshots that exist in your environment. Leaving a snapshot open can cause slowness and lead to failure for the VMs residing on the snapshot volume.

http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2008/12/02/know-thy-open-snapshots/
More vQuotes

vMotioned

By default, VMs which are bound to an internal vSwitch (that is, a vSwitch with no pNIC uplinks) cannot be vMotioned. This behavior can be altered by adding the following to the config flag in the vCenter vpxd.cfg file:
[migrate]
[test]
[CompatibleNetworks]
[VMOnVirtualIntranet]false[/VMOnVirtualIntranet]
[/CompatibleNetworks]
[/test]
[/migrate]
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006701
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Linked Mode for vCenter Server 4.1:
Linked vCenter Server system: 10 vCenter Servers
ESX(i) hosts in Linked Mode environment: 3,000 ESX(i) hosts
Powered-on VMs in Linked Mode environment: 30,000 VMs
Registered VMs in Linked Mode environment: 50,000 VMs

vCenter Server 2.5 and below does not support Linked Mode
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Windows Failover Clustering with VMware HA - Clustered Virtual Machines that utilize Windows Failover Clustering/Microsoft Cluster Service are now fully supported in conjunction with VMware HA.

http://vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_mscs.pdf
More vQuotes

RAID rebuild

A RAID rebuild is the most stressful time period in the life of a drive. This is because the drive is busy servicing IO requests to rebuild the RAID set, while also servicing normal read/write IO requests. A drive is more likely to fail during a RAID rebuild. For this reason, it's a good idea to think about smaller RAID 5 sets, use RAID 6 or RAID-DP, or employ the use of a hot spare drive along with RAID protection.
More vQuotes

Virtual disk to an RDM

Convert a standard virtual disk to an RDM with the following commands:
For virtual compatibility mode: vmkfstools -I [srcfile] -d rdm: /vmfs/devices/disks/vmhbaW:X:Y:Z /vmfs/volumes/[datastore]/[vmdir]/[vmname].vmdk
For physical compatibility mode: vmkfstools -I [srcfile] -d rdmp: /vmfs/devices/disks/vmhbaW:X:Y:Z /vmfs/volumes/[datastore]/[vmdir]/[vmname].vmdk
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/3443266
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Virtual NICs per VM:
ESX(i) 4.1: 10 NICs
ESX(i) 4.0u1: 10 NICs
ESX(i) 3.5 Update 5: 4 NICs
More vQuotes

vSphere 4.1

With vSphere 4.1 being the last version with a Service Console, you will need to learn how to use vMA Appliance 4.1 efficiently. Get to know vi-fastpass & its commands which are used to bind to hosts & execute commands without having to supply a server name & credentials with each command issued. vMA 4.1 eliminates the sudo requirement:

vifp addserver host
vifp removeserver host
vifptarget -s host

http://bit.ly/dp5GTL
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Hardware iSCSI initiator ports per host:
ESX(i) 4.x: 4 ports
ESX(i) 3.5 Update 4: 2 ports
More vQuotes

VM networking issues

If you are experiencing host or VM networking issues, take a look at VMware KB article 1004109 entitled ESX Server host or virtual machines have intermittent or no network connectivity. This article contains several links to troubleshoot networking issues.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004109
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Number of virtual machines per host:
ESX(i) 4.1: 320 VMs per host (all cluster feature restrictions lifted)
ESX(i) 4.0u1: 320 VMs per standalone host
ESX(i) 4.0u1: 256 VMs per host in a DRS cluster
ESX(i) 4.0u1: 160 VMs per host in an HA cluster of 8 or less hosts
ESX(i) 4.0u1: 40 VMs per host in an HA cluster of 9 or more hosts
ESX(i) 3.5u5: 170 VMs per host
More vQuotes

On this day in 2006

On this day in 2006, VMware announced Lab Manager, which enables enterprise software development organizations to more efficiently utilize software development and test lab assets, accelerate software development cycles and increase the quality of delivered software products. Two years later on the same date, version 3.0.1 is released with support for ESX3.5 Updates 3 and 4
More vQuotes

Why EMC PowerPath/VE?

Why EMC PowerPath/VE?
Better availability through:
-active management of intermittent path behavior
-more rapid path state detection
-automated path discovery behavior w/o manual rescan
Better performance:
-through better path selection
-by monitoring & adjusting to ESX host queue depth
-by predictive optimization based on the array port queues
Why not?
-Incompatibilities between PowerPath & non-EMC arrays.
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

vCenter Server 4.1 can support three times more virtual machines and hosts per system, as well as more concurrent instances of the vSphere Client and a larger number of virtual machines per cluster than vCenter Server 4.0. The scalability limits of Linked Mode, vMotion, and vNetwork Distributed Switch have also increased.

http://vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf
More vQuotes

Virtual Computing Environment coalition

On this day in 2009, VMware, Cisco & EMC introduced the Virtual Computing Environment coalition, a collaboration of 3 IT industry leaders. The VCE is created to accelerate customers’ ability to increase business agility through greater IT infrastructure flexibility, & lower IT, energy & real estate costs through pervasive data center virtualization & a transition to private cloud infrastructures.

http://bit.ly/4vm7GX
More vQuotes

vGingerbread Hypervisor

vGingerbread Hypervisor

vSphere 4.0 was released on 5/21/09 and introduced ~150 new features.
vSphere 4.1 was released on 7/13/10 and introduced 150+ new features.
That's 300+ features in 418 days...
or 1 new feature developed every 1.4 days.

Can any competitor catch VMware?
More vQuotes

VMware vSphere Cheat Sheet

Many people stumble on the accurate definition of a VLAN. Although a convenient analogy, a VLAN is really more than just a subnet. Following is a good summary:

"A VLAN is a logical LAN that provides efficient segmentation, security, & broadcast control while allowing traffic to share the same physical LAN segments or same physical switches."
-Scott Lowe, Mastering VMware vSphere 4

http://amzn.to/17CEzy
More vQuotes

Enhanced vMotion Compatibility

Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support

Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) simplifies vMotion compatibility issues across CPU generations. EVC automatically configures server CPUs with Intel FlexMigration or AMD-V Extended Migration technologies to be compatible with older servers. Requires ESX Server 3.5 Update 2 or higher with Virtual Center 2.5 Update 2 or higher.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003212
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Unattended Authentication in vSphere Management Assistant (vMA) - vMA 4.1 offers improved authentication capability, including integration with Active Directory and commands to configure the connection.

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vima/
More vQuotes

Linux

ESX is not Linux.
ESXi isn't Linux either.
More vQuotes

ESX script to display the full path

ESX script to display the full path in the Service Console
Example:
In your ESX console, instead of seeing this:
[root@host vmware]#
You’ll see this:
[root@host /etc/vmware]#
Paste the following into PuTTY on your ESX host:
mv /etc/bashrc /etc/bashrc.old
sed -e “s/\\h \\\W/\\h \\\w/g” /etc/bashrc.old > /etc/bashrc
Close your PuTTY session and re-open to see the change take effect.
More vQuotes

Workstation 7

On this day in 2009, VMware released Workstation 7 - the gold standard in desktop virtualization for technical professionals. Features include Best in class Windows 7 support, Superior 3D graphics, up to 4 vCPUs and 32GB of RAM per virtual machine.

Read more at: http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/wkstn7-ga.html
More vQuotes

VMware ThinApp

Make Portable Applications with VMware ThinApp

The following URL provides a tutorial in packaging applications with ThinApp. It's very easy. All you need is a pristine Windows machine (I highly recommend a VM with non-persistent disk so upon power off, the VM is pristine once again).

http://hacktolive.org/wiki/Make_portable_applications_with_VMware_ThinApp
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums

Configuration Maximums for VMware vSphere is my favorite VMware document. It answers many of the "How many", "How much" type questions about VI capabilities. This is one of the documents that will most often be updated as new releases of VMware VI are released so it's a good one to keep tabs on.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

NFS datastores:
ESX(i) 4.1: 64 NFS datastores
ESX(i) 4.0 Update 1: 64 NFS datastores (requires change in advanced settings)
ESX(i) 3.5 Update 5: 32 NFS datastores (requires change in advanced settings)
More vQuotes

Multiple TCP sessions

One of the big improvements to iSCSI in vSphere is that multiple TCP sessions can be aggregated to a single iSCSI target. Although vSphere allows just 1 TCP connection per iSCSI session, the key enabler is that vSphere allows multiple iSCSI sessions per target.

Previous versions of ESX(i) allowed just one TCP connection per iSCSI session & 1 iSCSI session per target.
More vQuotes

VMFS volumes blocks

Are your VMFS volumes block aligned? For optimal disk I/O utilization & performance they should be. You can find out in the ESX Service Console with the following command:

fdisk -lu /vmfs/devices/disks/[vmhba_path]

A start value of 63 indicates no VMFS alignment (not optimized)
A start value of 128 indicates VMFS alignment (optimized)
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Access Virtual Machine Serial Ports Over the Network - You can redirect virtual machine serial ports over a standard network link in vSphere 4.1. This enables solutions such as third-party virtual serial port concentrators for virtual machine serial console management or monitoring.

http://vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_vm_admin_guide.pdf
More vQuotes

Transparent Page Sharing

Transparent Page Sharing is an incredible VMware invention that allows 2 or more VMs to share identical pages in host memory. This allows an over commit of VM guest memory and a cost savings of host memory. Take a technical deep dive by reading Carl Waldspurger's ESX Memory Resource Management white paper at:

http://www.waldspurger.org/carl/papers/esx-mem-osdi02.pdf

One day this paper should be in museum.
More vQuotes

vSMP

vSMP

Scheduling 2+ vCPUs in a VM, ESX2 used a "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 (and vSphere) resulting in a significant reduction of co-scheduling fragmentation.
See http://bit.ly/yplYU
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Reduced Overhead Memory - vSphere 4.1 reduces the amount of overhead memory required, especially when running large virtual machines on systems with CPUs that provide hardware MMU support (AMD RVI or Intel EPT).
More vQuotes

Installation of VMware

The new LSI Logic SAS virtual SCSI Controller in the guest VM is for Windows Server 2008 clustering. It is recommended to use this SCSI Controller when building Windows Server 2008 VMs in case clustering is installed later down the road.
More vQuotes

Disk timeout

One of the configurations 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 may not be 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
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

DRS Virtual Machine Host Affinity Rules - DRS provides the ability to set constraints that restrict placement of a virtual machine to a subset of hosts in a cluster. This is useful for enforcing host-based ISV licensing models, as well as keeping sets of virtual machines on different racks or blade systems for availability reasons.

http://bit.ly/d16N7f
More vQuotes

Unable to add an ESX host

If you are unable to add an ESX host to a cluster due to HA issues, take a look at VMware KB article 1001596 entitled Troubleshooting VMware High Availability (HA). This article contains several steps to troubleshoot HA issues.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1001596
More vQuotes

Native log file rotation

The native log file rotation behavior can be tweaked by logging into the ESX Service Console and modifying the file /etc/logrotate.conf (I very much prefer the nano editor to the VI editor).

Use the following command to view the man page detailing log rotation:
man logrotate
More vQuotes

Setting CPU Affinity

Setting CPU Affinity on a per VM basis is not a great idea. Here are a few reasons why:

1) Administrative burden to configure, track, and document
2) Not compatible with vMotion
3) Not compatible with DRS
4) It makes the scheduler's job more difficult when scheduling CPU time for VMs
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

iSCSI Hardware Offloads - Enables 10Gb iSCSI hardware offloads (Broadcom 57711) and 1Gb iSCSI hardware offloads (Broadcom 5709).

http://bit.ly/bNrQRZ
http://bit.ly/9a2NoE
http://bit.ly/cIzuuK
More vQuotes

VMFS-3 Maximum File Sizes

VMFS-3 Maximum File Sizes
The maximum file size allowable on a VMFS-3 volume is determined by the block size when the VMFS volume was created. Since the block size cannot be changed without destroying the VMFS volume and all the data on it, plan accordingly.
Block Size Max File Size
1MB------------256GB
2MB------------512GB
4MB------------1TB
8MB------------2TB - 512B
http://bit.ly/d8ku5Y
More vQuotes

Guest VM folders

Guest VM folders do not exist on a standalone ESX(i) host without vCenter Server. As an alternative, consider using resource pools to organize virtual machines. If you do so, understand the resource management impacts which resource pools deliver and configure the resource pool settings accordingly (reservations, limits, and shares).
More vQuotes

vCenter Server

SQL Server 2000 is a supported database back end for vCenter Server versions through 2.5 Update 6. Oracle 9iR2 through 11g is also supported.

vCenter Server 4.x requires SQL Server 2005 SP1-3 or SQL Server 2008 no SP. Oracle 10gR2 & 11g is also supported. SQL Server 2005 Express Edition has limited support (5 hosts, 50 VMs).

Check the following document for specific SPs & frequent support updates: http://bit.ly/19Zbgm
More vQuotes

CPU utilization

Server administrators were taught to believe 90% CPU utilization is 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.
More vQuotes

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.
More vQuotes

vSphere ESX(i) hosts

vSphere ESX(i) hosts can have up to:

32 e1000 pNICs
32 Broadcom TG3 Gb ports
16 Broadcom BNX2 Gb ports
4 10GbE pNICs
32 vSwitch uplinks (pNICs)

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf
More vQuotes

Shared storage arrays

Shared storage arrays and High Availability: As a general rule of thumb, NAS (NFS) device failover generally takes longer than block (FC, iSCSI) device failover. Advantage block storage if your applications or operating system thresholds can tolerate only short storage interruptions.
More vQuotes

ESX has 2 execution modes

ESX has 2 execution modes: Direct Execution Mode & Virtualization Mode. Direct Execution Mode is much more efficient because it has direct access to the host hardware, thus it is the most preferred method of instruction execution. Virtualization Mode is used when Direct Execution Mode is not possible, primarily when an instruction needs access to CPU Ring 0. The VMkernel handles each of these requests, thus it's slower.
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Fibre Channel LUN size:
ESX(i) 4.x: 2TB minus 512B
ESX(i) 3.5 Update 4: 2TB
More vQuotes

VMbook: Practical Guide

VMbook: Practical Guide to Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery with VMware Infrastructure featuring Hardware and Software Solutions from:
AMD, Cisco, Dell, Emulex, Intel, NetApp, Sun Microsystems

Once you have VI installed, this is a fantastic 230 page manual for jumpstarting your VI BCP/DR planning and execution.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/practical_guide_bcdr_vmb.pdf
More vQuotes

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.
More vQuotes

Snapshot on ESX(i)

When creating a snapshot on ESX(i), consider not snapshotting the virtual machine's memory. By default the virtual machine memory will be included in the snapshot. Snapshotting a VM without the memory state will take a lot less time and disk storage. Understand, however, that you cannot revert to a live running VM without the saved memory state. The snapshot will be crash consistent.
More vQuotes

Storage vMotion failure

If you have encountered a Storage vMotion failure, take a look at the following 2 resources for recovery procedures:

http://www.van-lieshout.com/2009/03/how-to-recover-from-failed-svmotion/
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1009113
More vQuotes

Cisco Nexus 1000V

The Cisco Nexus 1000V is made up of two pieces:

1. The Virtual Ethernet Module (VEM) - A drop in replacement of the standard vSwitch or vDS. VM vNIC traffic traverses this.
2. The Virtual Supervisor Module (VSM) - A VM running Cisco's NX-OS which controls the VEMs. Configurations are performed here and pushed to the VEMs.
More vQuotes

Disconnected template?

Got a disconnected template? Several solutions exist to resolve the problem:
-Disconnect and reconnect the ESX host which owns the template
-Restart the mgmt-vmware service in the ESX Service Console
-Restart the vCenter service
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

VMware HA Scalability Improvements - VMware HA has the same limits for virtual machines per host, hosts per cluster, and virtual machines per cluster as vSphere. This lifts restrictions from the past which were dependent on variables such as number of hosts in a cluster, DRS, and HA enablement.

http://vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf
More vQuotes

Virtualizing Existing Domain Controllers

Virtualizing Existing Domain Controllers

Contrary to some beliefs, Domain Controllers make fine virtualization candidates with the right sizing and adherence to best practices. There are two approaches to DC virtualization: Creating new virtual DCs from scratch, and converting physical DCs to virtual. The following URL contains information for virtualizing existing domain controllers:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006996
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

ESX(i) hosts manageable by a vCenter Server:
vCenter Server 4.1: 1,000 ESX(i) hosts
vCenter Server 4.0 32-bit: 200 ESX(i) hosts
vCenter Server 4.0 64-bit: 300 ESX(i) hosts
vCenter Server 2.5 Update 6: 200 ESX(i) hosts
More vQuotes

Cached Virtual Infrastructure

Cached Virtual Infrastructure Client host connection entries are stored in the Windows registry and are tied to each individual user profile (HKU). You’ll find the comma delimited list of entries in the following registry key:

HKU\[User SID]\Software\VMware\VMware Infrastructure Client\Preferences\
The value name is RecentConnections and the type is REG_SZ
More vQuotes

DRS Decisions

DRS: Decisions.. Decisions..

Virtual Infrastructure revolves around 4 core resources: CPU, Memory, Disk, & Network. DRS is a service that balances the workload of an ESX cluster based on resource utilization. However, DRS only evaluates 2 of the 4 core resources: CPU & Memory which are the 2 biggest bottlenecks, with Disk being a close 3rd.

DRS examines the cluster workload balance every 5 minutes, or 12 times per hour.
More vQuotes

VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Enhancements to Host Profiles - You can now use Host Profiles to roll out administrator password changes in vSphere 4.1. Enhancements also include improved Cisco Nexus 1000V support and PCI device ordering configuration.

http://bit.ly/bNrQRZ
http://bit.ly/9a2NoE
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

License Reporting Manager - Provides a centralized interface for all license keys for vSphere 4.1 products in a virtual IT infrastructure & their respective usage. You can view & generate reports on license keys & usage for different time periods with the LRM. A historical record of the utilization per license key is maintained in the vCenter Server database.

http://bit.ly/9q9HW8
More vQuotes

Lab Manager configuration

VMware added Extension Baselines to Update Manager which has the ability to deploy VMware software or 3rd party add-on software such as EMC PowerPath/VE or the Nexus 1000V vSwitch.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_vum_40u1_admin_guide.pdf
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1019844
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

VMware HA Healthcheck and Operational Status - The VMware HA dashboard in the vSphere Client provides a new detailed window called Cluster Operational Status. This window displays more information about the current VMware HA operational status, including the specific status and errors for each host in the VMware HA cluster.

http://vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_availability.pdf
More vQuotes

vSwitch Security Attributes

vSwitch Security Attributes & Defaults

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

Syslog Tidbits

With vSphere version 7 guest VM hardware, the following virtual hardware can be "hot added" while the guest VM is running (some are dependent on the guest OS type):

-Additional CPUs
-Additional Memory
-USB Controller
-Ethernet Adapter
-Hard Disk
-SCSI Device
More vQuotes

Kill a hung or stuck VM

5 methods to kill a hung or stuck VM:
1. vmware-cmd -l
vmware-cmd [.vmx config filename] stop trysoft
2. vm-support -x or cat /proc/vmware/vm/*/names
vm-support -X [vmid]
3. vmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
vmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/poweroff [vm id]
4. ps -auxwww | grep [vm name]
kill [process id]
5. ps -auxwww | grep [vm name]
kill -9 [process id]
ESX: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004340
ESXi: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1014165
More vQuotes

Timekeeping best practices for Linux

Timekeeping best practices for Linux
The following recommendations include specifics on the kernel command line options to use for the Linux operating system. Descriptions are included for NTP time sync, configuration of VMware Tools time synchronization, and Virtual Hardware Clock configuration, to achieve best timekeeping results.
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006427
See also: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1011771
More vQuotes

ESX Service Console "last" command

In the ESX Service Console, the "last" command parses recent entries in the /var/log/wtmp binary log which is a log of all logins and logouts to the system.
More vQuotes

Beacon Probing

When using Beacon Probing to detect vSwitch uplink path failures, 3+ uplinks are needed to accurately detect a bad path. In the event that ESX(i) cannot detect with guaranteed certainty which path has gone bad, such as in the case of using only 2 pNICs with Beacon Probing, the hypervisor will "shotgun" traffic down all pNIC uplinks, hoping the frames will reach their intended destination on at least 1 of the paths.
More vQuotes

Microsoft Cluster Server

Microsoft Cluster Server can be virtualized on VMware Virtual Infrastructure. Although MSCS can be deployed several ways on VMware, a precise set of configurations and conditions exist which must be met in order to be supported by VMware. You can view them at the links below:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_mscs.pdf
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_mscs.pdf
More vQuotes

VMware Infrastructure Operations

VMware Infrastructure Operations (VIOPS) is an incredibly technical community resource containing VMware Virtual Infrastructure proven practices and advanced solutions. Topics include strategy, applications, security, management, and availability.

http://communities.vmware.com/community/viops
More vQuotes

MAC address prefixes

The following OUIs (MAC address prefixes) are registered to VMware through the IEEE. These are the possible MAC address prefixes you will see assigned in the first three octets of VMware virtual network adapters:

00:05:69
00:0c:29
00:1c:14
00:50:56
More vQuotes

NFS datastores

NFS datastores use 2 TCP sessions to the back end NFS server (1 for NFS control traffic, 1 for data traffic). Only 1 TCP session is used for data transport per datastore. This means that to aggregate the bandwidth of multiple VMkernel VMNICs, multiple NFS datastores are required. This also implies that a single NFS datastore cannot use more than one VMNIC's worth of bandwidth.
More vQuotes

Enable daemons/services

Permanently enable daemons/services in the ESX Service Console/ESXi 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
More vQuotes

Troubleshooting Options

The new "Troubleshooting Options" menu item in the ESXi 4.1 Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) features 3 new items not seen before:

Enable Local Tech Support - Toggles access to the Tech Support Mode (TSM) console with ALT + F1
Enable Remote Tech Support (SSH) - Toggles remote SSH access (PuTTY)
Modify Tech Support timeout - Time (minutes) before TSM logins are automatically disabled (default=0 disabled, max=1440)
More vQuotes

Esxcfg-module

esxcfg-module and the older school vmkload_mod both provide about the same information when listing loaded VMkernel modules. However, a few of the differences that set the tools apart are:

Only esxcfg-module can enable/disable modules

Only vmkload_mod can interactively load/unload modules
More vQuotes

The right network adapter

Choosing the right network adapter for your virtual machine

The network adapter choices that are available depend on the virtual machine version number and the guest operating system running on the virtual machine.
The Choose Networks window makes available only those network adapters that make sense for the virtual machine you are creating. Continue reading at the following KB article:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1001805
More vQuotes

Best Practices

VMware vCenter Server Performance and Best Practices for vSphere 4.1

vCenter is a core dependency in the virtual data center for many of vSphere's key features. This whitepaper covers 4 areas concerning vCenter performance:

1. Performance improvements in vSphere 4.1
2. vCenter sizing guidelines and software requirements
3. Monitoring, tuning and troubleshooting
4. Performance improvement case studies

http://bit.ly/96ggV8
More vQuotes

vCenter Server Linked Mode

Any computer which runs vCenter Server Linked Mode must be a member of a Windows domain. Linked Mode vCenter Servers may be in different domains but a two-way trust must exist between the domains involved.
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Updated Deployment Environment in vSphere Management Assistant (vMA) - The updated deployment environment in vMA 4.1 is fully compatible with vMA 4.0. A significant change is the transition from RHEL to CentOS.

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vima/
More vQuotes

License per CPU

SMBs searching for cost effective VMware licensing should look at VMware vSphere Essentials and Essentials Plus. While other tiers are licensed per host socket, these editions are licensed for up to three hosts at competitive list prices.
More vQuotes

Security Tip

Security Tip: Disable Copy & Paste Operations Between the Guest Operating System and
Remote Console (disabled by default in vSphere 4.1)

Provide the following advanced parameters for the VM's configuration (stored in the .vmx file):
isolation.tools.copy.disable = true
isolation.tools.paste.disable = true
isolation.tools.setGUIOptions.enable = false

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vi35_security_hardening_wp.pdf
More vQuotes

IDE drives

With the introduction of vSphere, IDE drives are supported in VMware virtual infrastructure. Another change is that when creating a new Windows XP VM, the wizard now defaults to utilizing an IDE virtual hard disk instead of SCSI which was the case prior to vSphere. Both Vista and Windows 7 default to using a SCSI drive.
More vQuotes

TCP Wrappers Flowchart

TCP Wrappers Flowchart
When a remote connection is requested, the access control software consults 2 files. The search stops at the first match:
-Access will be granted when a (daemon,client) pair matches an entry in the /etc/hosts.allow file
-Otherwise, access will be denied when a (daemon,client) pair matches an entry in the /etc/hosts.deny file
-Otherwise, access will be granted

ESXi doesn't use TCP wrappers
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Load-Based Teaming - Allows dynamic adjustment of the teaming algorithm so that the load is always balanced across a team of physical adapters on a vNetwork Distributed Switch.

http://bit.ly/bNrQRZ
http://bit.ly/9a2NoE
More vQuotes

Linux Guest Operating Systems

Whitepaper: Installing and Configuring Linux Guest Operating Systems

This whitepaper talks about installing, configuring, updating, and administering Linux guest operating systems in virtual machines running on VMware Infrastructure 3 version 3.5. In addition, it also provides a collection of useful tips and tricks in fine-tuning your Linux virtual machines:

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/linux_install_config.pdf
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

USB Device Passthrough from an ESX/ESXi Host to a Virtual Machine - You can configure a virtual machine to use USB devices that are connected to an ESX/ESXi host where the virtual machine is running. The connection is maintained even if you migrate the virtual machine using vMotion.

http://vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_vm_admin_guide.pdf
More vQuotes

Make vCenter highly available

Make vCenter highly available. Deploy vCenter in a Windows VM hosted on a VMware VI cluster. A few reasons why:
-It’s a VMware best practice.
-You may already have a VI cluster in your environment you can leverage.
-Avoiding Microsoft Cluster Services removes a 3rd party infrastructure complexity, additional licensing costs, and dependency which requires an advanced skill set to support.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/10087
More vQuotes

VMware ESX

VMware ESX: Detect problems with your .vmx files with the following Service Console command:
vmware-configcheck | grep -v PASS
The command walks through the inventory and checks whether each virtual machine in the inventory matches the set of rules on configuration that is indicated in the rules file on the host: /etc/vmware/configrules
More vQuotes

VI3 License File Locations

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 conventional speeds.

All of the above assumes there is no VLAN tagging involved.
More vQuotes

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Boot from SAN - Enables ESXi boot from SAN (BFN). iSCSI, FCoE, and Fibre Channel boot are supported. Refer to the Hardware Compatibility Guide for the latest list of NICs and Converged Adapters that are supported with iSCSI boot.

http://bit.ly/4vdw3b
http://bit.ly/cIzuuK
http://bit.ly/bih9kD
More vQuotes

SAN Zoning Best Practices

SAN Zoning Best Practices

Take a look at Brocade's Secure SAN Zoning Best Practices document. Although it contains the Brocade name throughout, the principles can be applied to any vendor’s fabric. Please keep these best practices in mind when designing and configuring SAN fabrics for your VMware virtual infrastructure.

Download it here:
http://bit.ly/aNIf9d
More vQuotes

VMware IPO

On this day in 2006, EMC Corporation released 10% of the company's shares in VMware in an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock debuted at $29 per share and closed the day at $51 per share.
More vQuotes

2-for-1

2-for-1
On this day in 2008, VMware customers were impacted by a "time bomb" bug in ESX 3.5 U2 build 103908 & 103909 that prevented VMs from being powered on or vMotioned. -@vinternals
http://bit.ly/bhJdfW

When utilizing the "Use Explicit Failover Order" vSwitch Load Balancing policy, all Active Adapters are used in the failover sequence before the hypervisor resorts to using adapters in the Standby Adapters list.
More vQuotes

RDM versus a traditional non-RDM

In most cases, there are no performance benefits to using an RDM versus a traditional non-RDM virtual disk in a VM. There are 2 exceptions:

1) For sequential reads and writes, RDM provides slightly better I/O performance at smaller I/O block sizes.

2) As I/O block size increases, CPU cycles per I/O increases for VMFS compared to RDM.
More vQuotes

SpringSource

On this day in 2009, VMware announced its intent to acquire SpringSource, a 5 year-old company rapidly becoming a leader in enterprise & web application development & management for approximately $362M cash plus $58M in stock. There are many reasons why this makes sense. Read more from Steve Herrod at http://bit.ly/TPr0y

Trivia: An April Fool's Day rumor circulated in 2008 stating Microsoft would purchase SpringSource.
More vQuotes

DRS: Decisions.. Decisions...

The "Virtual Machine Administrator" vCenter role was removed from vSphere. Good riddance! The name of the role was misleading as it has a lot more permissions than virtual machine administration. For example, this role had the ability to destroy datastores!
More vQuotes

Fusion 1.0

VMware vMotion & CPU Compatibility
This document discusses CPU compatibility & outlines the checks performed by VMware vCenter before allowing migration with vMotion. It details differences in features & extensions in current CPUs & describes procedures that could be used to relax some CPU compatibility constraints to facilitate vMotion.
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmotion_info_guide.pdf
More vQuotes

ESX vSwitch Network Load Balancing

Script to Configure ESX vSwitch Network Load Balancing

Xtravirt, the VMware gurus that they are, published some useful information for scripting vSwitch load balancing (4 available policies) using the vimsh command. Take a look at the following URL:

http://xtravirt.com/xd10066

See also: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1019864
More vQuotes

ESX Memory Configuration

Default ESX Service Console Memory Configuration

ESX 4.x = Dynamic allocation based on total physical host memory
ESX 3.5 u5 = 512MB
ESX 3.x (through Update 4)= 272MB

The maximum memory for all versions of ESX is 800MB. The minimum configurable for ESX 4.1 is 256MB although the configuration maximums documentation specifies 300MB.

Read more here: http://bit.ly/8FUQNn
More vQuotes

Extended verbose

One might think the most verbose log file setting for vCenter is "verbose".
It's not. It's actually "trivia (extended verbose)" and can be changed in the vCenter Administration pulldown menu, Logging Options section.

This can also be changed by editing the vpxd.cfg file, however, a vCenter service restart would be required using this method.
More vQuotes

VMware HA

Assuming a healthy installation and configuration of the agents, VMware HA will continue to function and limit Virtual Machine downtime even when vCenter Server is down or unavailable.
More vQuotes

VM 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
More vQuotes

EtherChannel / Link

Sample configuration of EtherChannel / Link aggregation with ESX and Cisco/HP switches

VMware has published KB 1004048 which describes concepts, limitations and sample configurations of link aggregation / NIC Teaming / LACP / Ether-Channel connectivity between ESX and Physical Network Switches, in particular, Cisco and HP.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004048
More vQuotes

VMware VPP

On this day in 2010, VMware announced a new VMware Volume Purchasing Program (VPP). VMware VPP provides customers with consistent, accumulative software license discounting through a tier-based points system. The program helps maximize the value derived from volume purchases of VMware software, including cost savings on VMware solutions and increased budget predictability for future purchases.

http://bit.ly/cAHZx5
More vQuotes

VMware memory hot add

VMware vSphere supports memory hot add for the following Windows OSs:
Win2k3 ENT x86/x64
Win2k8 & R2 STD x86*/x64*
Win2k8 & R2 ENT x86/x64
VMware vSphere supports CPU hot plug for the following Windows OSs:
Win2k8 & R2 STD x64*
Win2k8 ENT x64*
Win2k8 R2 ENT x64
Memory and CPU hot remove is not supported for Windows OSs.
* = Reboot of guest OS required to recognize added hardware
More vQuotes

Esxtop focus

You may already know that while in esxtop, interactively pressing the c, m, d, and n keys changes the esxtop focus to each of the 4 food groups. Did you know there are additional views for disk? Compare the following 3 disk views: d, u, v. Also, f allows adding/removing columns, & V displays VM rows only.

To view the complete documentation for esxtop (known as man pages in the *nix world), use the command:
man esxtop
More vQuotes

A vSwitch NIC team

A vSwitch NIC team should be constructed from pNIC uplinks which do not share the same bus path on the host. In other words, don't tie redundant paths to a dual or quad port NIC. Ideally, NIC team cabling will also go to different physical switches, switch blades, or switch asics, in that order, to avoid a single point of failure (SPOF).
More vQuotes

SCSI reservation conflicts

Scan your ESX logs for SCSI reservation conflicts with the following command at the Service Console:

grep -i reservation /var/log/vmkernel*
More vQuotes

Update Manager plugin failures

VMware Update Manager Baseline Groups are new in vSphere. The Baseline Group feature allows multiple VUM Baselines to be aggregated into a Baseline Group. In turn, the Baseline Group can be applied to an object in the vSphere inventory. A benefit is that a single remediation task is performed against an inventory object using the Baseline Group instead of multiple scheduled remediation tasks with individual Baselines.
More vQuotes

Tme zone in ESX

The time zone in ESX is set through via a symbolic link to /etc/localtime, which is a file located in the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory. The symbolic link relates to the time zone that the ESX host is in. Check the current configuration with ll /etc/localtime and cat /etc/sysconfig/clock. To set the time zone, create the correct symbolic link:

ie. ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/[country]/[location] /etc/localtime
More vQuotes

Last version of ESX

The announcement has been made by VMware that 4.1 will be the last version of ESX. 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.
More vQuotes

vSphere Client shortcut

Modify your vSphere Client shortcut to provide frequently used parameters & limit repetitive typing. This can be particularly useful if you cannot utilize the "Use Windows session credentials" check box.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\VpxClient.exe"
-s server
-u domain\user id
-p password

http://vdestination.com/2010/07/29/vsphere-client-caching/
More vQuotes

VMware VirtualCenter Management

Is your vSphere Storage Views tab or host Hardware Status tab not functioning or missing? Make sure the VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices service is running on the vCenter Server.
More vQuotes

Freeing space

Freeing space when the /var/ partition is full
To free some space on the /var/ partition, you can safely remove the cached RPM package saved on /var/cache/yum/update.
To remove the RPM package:
Log into the ESX host as root using an SSH client.
Run the command:
yum clean all
Rerun the command:
df -h
The output indicates that the amount of free space on the /var partition has increased. http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1005768
More vQuotes

Girl Power!

Girl Power!

VMware VCP #1 is Susan Gudenkauf, who is a Senior Manager in the VMware TAM Program, a Minnesota resident, & a lover of Vikings football & golf. Susan recalls that when she sat the VCP exam, the format was pencil and paper. This is far removed from standard computerized testing we are familiar with today.

Contact her on Twitter @susangude
(and wish her a happy birthday today!)
More vQuotes

Hyper-Threading

One of the big improvements to swiSCSI in vSphere is that it is no longer dependent on a Service Console portgroup. Overhead communication such as CHAP authentication and session control occurs over the VMkernel portgroup. This is key because, in the past, utilizing CHAP meant requiring a Service Console portgroup on the iSCSI network, or worse, putting iSCSI traffic on the Service Console network.
More vQuotes

On this day in 2010

On this day in 2010, VMware released vSphere 4.1, the second generation of vSphere. This version touts an array of new and enhanced features as well as significant increases in configuration maximums for unparalleled hypervisor scaling. 4.1 advances the foundation for the vCloud initiative, VMware's approach to Cloud Computing.

Read more at: http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vsphere-4-1.html
More vQuotes

ESXi

Roll back to a prior firmware version of ESXi using SHIFT + R at black bootup screen which displays the white progress bar. This can be useful for recovering from a patching incident.
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Improvements in Enhanced vMotion Compatibility - A new AMD Opteron Gen. 3 (no 3DNow!) EVC mode that prepares clusters for vMotion compatibility with future AMD processors. EVC also provides numerous usability improvements, including the display of EVC modes for VMs, more timely error detection, better error messages, & the reduced need to restart VMs.

http://bit.ly/9q9HW8
More vQuotes

On this day in 2006

On this day in 2006, VMware released 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.
More vQuotes

VMware Update Manager

VMware Update Manager and the vSphere Host Update Utility share a common problem which may impact ESX environments depending on how the hypervisor upgrade is performed. Neither utility honors custom Service Console partitioning schemes. Custom partitions will be ignored and the new Service Console will have a single partition mounted in the root (/) directory.

http://bit.ly/a5IjIp
More vQuotes

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.
More vQuotes

Visual indicator

ESX3.5 introduced a visual indicator to the VMware Tools system tray icon to notify when tools are old. This new behavior can be disabled manually in the VMware Tools applet, or it can be packaged with the following registry change:
HKLM\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware Tools
Change the default value to a DWORD value of 0

To script:
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware Tools" /V "" /T REG_DWORD /D "0x0" /F
More vQuotes

New Update Manager

Up until vSphere, ESX(i) supported both SCSI-2 & SCSI-3 storage devices. This changed in vSphere, where ESX(i) 4.x supports only SCSI-3 storage devices.

That said, vSphere still utilizes SCSI-2 reservations which should be minimized as much as possible to minimize impact on running guest VMs. vSphere SCSI-3 VM persistent reservations are used to support Win2k8 WSFC (Windows Server Failover Clustering).
More vQuotes

Templates, Hosts and Clusters

VMs inherit privileges from two sources because their objects are shown in 2 different vCenter views (VMs & Templates and Hosts & Clusters). That said, certain actions or roles require a set of permissions on each side of the hierarchy. The 2 views and hierarchies become unified at the Datacenter level. If a permission is applied at the Datacenter level, it propagates down both sides of the hierarchy.
More vQuotes

Configurable Advanced HA Options

Configurable Advanced HA Options:

das.AllowNetwork = Used to specify an additional portgroup to use for failure detection
das.isolationAddress = Used to specify additional addresses to check for isolation detection
das.failureDetectionTime = Time in milliseconds before isolation response action. Default=15000
das.failureDetectionInterval = HA heartbeat interval in milliseconds. Default=1000

http://bit.ly/U3P2F
More vQuotes

Upgrading

Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) has 4 modes in ESX:
Down = CDP is fully disabled
Listen (default in ESX4.1) = Receives and displays information from other CDP enabled network devices. Does not Advertise
Advertise = Broadcasts the ESX host's network configuration. Does not listen
Both = CDP is fully enabled. Listen & Advertise are both enabled

Configure CDP on a per vSwitch basis with the command
esxcfg-vswitch -B[mode]
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

User-configurable Number of Virtual CPUs per Virtual Socket - Configure VMs to have multiple virtual CPUs reside in a single virtual socket, with each virtual CPU appearing to the guest operating system as a single core. Previously, VMs were restricted to having only one virtual CPU per virtual socket.

http://vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_vm_admin_guide.pdf
More vQuotes

SQL Whitepapers

SQL Whitepapers

Learn a good methodology for testing SQL server workloads to determine VM candidacy and placement. Understand how to characterize your SQL Server databases for virtualization and outlines important best practices for designing VMware Infrastructure to support SQL Server. Download the whitepapers below:

http://bit.ly/9eJf45
http://bit.ly/9AUolG
More vQuotes

Root password

How to recover the root password on an ESX 3.x/4.x host in single user mode

Reboot the host.
At the ESX boot menu, highlight the Service Console Only mode and press the 'a' key.
Type a space followed by the world 'single' and hit enter.
At the bash prompt, type the command 'passwd' to reset the root password.

ESXi: http://bit.ly/bOypUT

More details plus ESX 2 root password recovery procedure here: http://bit.ly/b6IkEa
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Lockdown Mode Enhancements - Lockdown mode allows restricted access to the ESXi Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) & Tech Support Mode (TSM). When lockdown mode is enabled, DCUI access is restricted to the root user & TSM is disabled for all users. Access to the host for management or monitoring using CIM is possible only through vCenter. Host access using vSphere Client is disabled.
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

vCenter Orchestrator 64-bit Support - vCenter Orchestrator 4.1 provides a client and server for 64-bit installations, with an optional 32-bit client. The performance of the Orchestrator server on 64-bit installations is greatly enhanced, as compared to running the server on a 32-bit machine.

http://vmware.com/pdf/vco_410_install_config_guide.pdf
More vQuotes

VMware

VMware virtually presents the Intel 440BX motherboard to virtual machines. This motherboard/chipset combination is well known for broad OS compatibility which ultimately lends itself well to maximized consolidation ratios in the virtualized datacenter.

http://bit.ly/aU6zIw
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Improved Handling of Recalled Patches in vCenter Update Manager - VUM 4.1 immediately sends critical notifications about recalled ESX & related patches. In addition, VUM prevents installation of a recalled patch that you might have already downloaded. This also helps you identify hosts where recalled patches might already be installed.

http://vmware.com/pdf/vsp_vum_41_admin_guide.pdf
More vQuotes

Nested Hypervisors

Nested Hypervisors
This is not a supported configuration, however, with the right tweaks you can install ESX4 on ESX4 or ESX4 on ESX3.5.
Take a look at http://www.vcritical.com/2009/05/vmware-esx-4-can-even-virtualize-itself/
Be sure to read through the comments as well as they contain some vital information.

VMware Workstation 7 also supports ESX(i) as a guest OS.
More vQuotes

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
More vQuotes

LDAP connections

In some situations, the display name of a VM may not match the folder where its files live. This can make life difficult when trying to identify a VM by its folder name. Dominic Rivera wrote a nice script that identifies these instances for which you can proactively correct using Storage vMotion. Follow the link below and check it out:

http://vmprofessional.com/2009/06/displayname-name-on-disk.html
More vQuotes

Native partitions

Native partitions can not be manually created or sized during an ESXi installation. The short ESXi installation routine consumes approximately 908MB of disk spanning seven partitions (3 Primary, 4 Extended) which are automatically created based on VMware best practices. The remaining disk space is allocated as block unaligned VMFS for use with virtual machines and VMkernel swap.
More vQuotes

VMDK header/descriptor

Recreating a corrupt or missing VMDK header/descriptor on hosted products

The inability to read a virtual disk is catastrophic. VMware KB 1015634 details the process required to recreate a VMDK header/descriptor file which was corrupted, deleted, or somehow damaged. The header/descriptor file is required to read the .VMDK file for which it was created.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015634
More vQuotes

ESX Firewall Rule

Make an ESX Firewall Rule Manageable in the vSphere Client

Open the file /etc/vmware/firewall/services.xml
Scroll to the bottom & note the last Service ID #
Copy an existing service section as a template (ie. faultTolerance)
Paste as new following proper XML formatting
Increment the Service ID # by 1 ensuring it's unique
Customize to fit your new inbound/outbound port rule
Save & exit
Services do not need to be restarted
More vQuotes

VMware Update Manager

VMware Update Manager Network Port Requirements
80
443
902
8084 TCP
9084 TCP
Optional 9000-9100 if 80 and 443 are already in use by another application

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004543
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1012382
More vQuotes

VMware ESX Purple Screen Of Death

Mike Laverick of RTFM Education and now TechTarget fame, has put together an honorable collection of VMware ESX Purple Screen Of Death image captures. Take a look and be thankful you're not looking at a representation of your own environment!

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/vmware-content/psod/
More vQuotes

Windows Server 2008 R2

Support for Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit only remember) as a platform for vCenter Server (and VUM) was added with the release of vSphere 4.1.
More vQuotes

Virtual Infrastructure 3

On this day in 2006, VMware released 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.
More vQuotes

Cost Per Application Calculator

VMware offers an online Cost Per Application Calculator. The tool was designed to accurately estimate and compare acquisition cost of a virtualization solution. VMware has labeled this metric Cost Per Application.

Take the tool for a spin and see how much you can save with VMware:
http://www.vmware.com/technology/whyvmware/calculator/
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Logical processors per host:
ESX(i) 4.1: 128 logical CPUs per host
ESX(i) 4.0u1: 64 logical processors per host
ESX(i) 3.5 Update 5: 32 cores per host
More vQuotes

vCenter Memory Statistics

Often Misinterpreted vCenter Memory Statistics:

Usage = Percentage of memory used as a percent of all available machine memory
Granted = Memory granted to the VM by the host. Memory is not granted until it is touched one time
Active = Memory used by the VM in the past small window of time
Consumed = Absolute host memory consumed by the VM
Shared = Memory shared with other VMs as a result of Transparent Page Sharing
More vQuotes

MS SQL

MS SQL
Simple Recovery Model: Regular backups of the trans log are not required as they do not grow much. Downside: If there is a failure of the DB, all changes made after the last full backup are lost; no SQL mirroring.

If recovery from failure is critical, Full Recovery Model must be used. Ensure regular backups of database & trans logs. This allows for recovery of data up to point of failure.

http://bit.ly/9wBx35
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Virtual Machines manageable by a vCenter Server:
vCenter Server 4.1: 10,000 powered on VMs
vCenter Server 4.1: 15,000 registered VMs
vCenter Server 4.0u1 32-bit: 2,000 powered on VMs
vCenter Server 4.0u1 32-bit: 3,000 registered VMs
vCenter Server 4.0u1 64-bit: 3,000 powered on VMs
vCenter Server 4.0u1 64-bit: 4,500 registered VMs
vCenter Server 2.5u6: 2,000 VMs
More vQuotes

Citrix Presentation Server

Starting with ESX3, virtualized Citrix Presentation Server (XenApp) workloads with a reasonable amount of users became a reality. I've virtualized many Citrix servers in production with great success. The content based page sharing mechanism really shines here. Following is a great 'Citrix on VMware' best practices article from Sven Huisman:

http://virtualfuture.info/2008/10/more-xenapp-45-on-vmware-recommendations/
More vQuotes

Running out of datastore disk space

DRS Affinity and Anti-Affinity rules are automated mechanisms to keep VMs on separate clustered hosts or to keep them together on the same host. This is a great unsung technology with one caveat: Only 2 VMs may be included per rule. In other words, if you need a rule for 3 VMs, create multiple rules which grow exponentially as VMs are added. This caveat was resolved in vSphere 4.1; rules can be created with many VMs.
More vQuotes

Enable daemons/services

Where possible, beware a potential pitfall of adding virtual hardware after vNICs have been added and configured in the guest OS. Adding virtual hardware (ie. a storage controller) sometimes changes the properties of the vNICs such that the guest OS will see it as a new NIC with and will assign a DHCP configuration.
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

Power Management Improvements - ESX 4.1 takes advantage of deep sleep states to further reduce power consumption during idle periods, configured by the vSphere Client UI. In addition, you can view the history of host power consumption & power cap information on the vSphere Client Performance tab on newer platforms with integrated power meters.

http://bit.ly/9q9HW8
More vQuotes

Check your ESX host

vmware-umds.exe is a VMware Update Manager command line utility that doesn't receive much attention. Nonetheless, it's installed on the VUM server and may come in handy for you some day. A few of its uses are invoking the download of updates as well as exporting updates to an archive folder.

Another command line utility is vmware-updateDownloadCli.exe which can be used to import updates from an archive folder.
More vQuotes

Looking for VMware Tools?

Looking for VMware Tools? Look no further than your ESX host under /vmimages/tools-isoimages. There you’ll find the .iso files that mount as images into the virtual CD-ROM tray when the “Install/Upgrade VMware Tools” command is passed to the ESX host for a VM. Under the floppies folder you’ll find vmscsi.flp which is the optimized BusLogic SCSI driver for legacy Windows guests.
More vQuotes

Clearing The Air On Shares

Clearing The Air On Shares

Share values are a method of allocating CPU and memory resources to VMs with preference in an over commit situation. Shares can be assigned individually in the VM configuration, or more globally at the resource pool level. What's often forgotten is that shares only come into play when a shortage of CPU or memory actually occurs. Outside of resource contention, shares don't do a darned thing.
More vQuotes

Fusion 1.0

On this date in 2007, VMware released Fusion 1.0, a VMware Workstation like product for the Apple Mac. Fusion was the first VMware product to introduce Unity view - a technology which takes the guest VM start menu and application windows and presents them as a seamless window on the Mac as if it was running PC applications.
More vQuotes

vCenter 4.1

vCenter 4.1 uses a 64-bit DSN.
vCenter 4.0/VUM requires a 32-bit DSN. Even when installing on a 64-bit Windows operating system, a 32-bit DSN is still required. The ODBC Data Sources shortcut on a 64-bit Windows OS creates 64-bit DSNs only. To create a 32-bit DSN on a 64-bit OS, launch:

c:\windows\syswow64\odbcad32.exe

http://bit.ly/8NBxOw

Be aware that the SQL Native Client driver is required for SQL2005 & SQL2008
More vQuotes

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Configuration Maximums Comparison

Concurrent vSphere client connections:
vCenter Server 4.1: 100 client connections
vCenter Server 4.0 32-bit: 15 client connections
vCenter Server 4.0 64-bit: 30 client connections
vCenter Server 2.5: unpublished

More vQuotes

ESX 4.0 and ESXi 4.0

Networking Differences Between ESX 4.0 & ESXi 4.0

None. As of vSphere, VMware has closed the gap completely between ESX & ESXi network feature differences.

Just to clear up any confusion which may remain on this subject, both platforms fully support Jumbo Frames - that includes VMkernel portgroups.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015000
More vQuotes

New in VMware vSphere 4.1

What's New in VMware vSphere 4.1

New optimizations have been implemented for AMD-V & Intel VT-x architectures, while memory utilization efficiency has been improved still further with Memory Compression. Storage enhancements lead to significant performance improvements in NFS environments. VDI operations, virtual machine provisioning & power operations, & vMotion have enhanced performance as well.

http://bit.ly/9Wyh40
More vQuotes

SQL Server authentication

vCenter Server 4.x supports both types of Microsoft SQL Server authentication: Windows and Mixed Mode.
More vQuotes

ESX shared storage

There are several solutions for ESX shared storage to take advantage of advanced ESX features. As far as free solutions, many Linux distributions natively ship with NFS & iSCSI Enterprise Target (IET) functionality including Fedora, Openfiler, & FreeNas. EMC Celerra VSA & NexentaStor is also nice. Pay solutions include StarWind, NexentaStor (ZFS based), Lefthand VSA, & Windows Services for Unix.
More vQuotes

vCenter 4.x license keys

vCenter 4.x license keys do not license VI3 legacy hosts. A VI3 license server or host based license keys must be plugged into vCenter 4.x in order to properly license VI3 legacy hosts.
More vQuotes

VMware Knowledge Base

When performing a cold migration (P2V, V2V) with VMware Converter, the source machine booting from the cold clone CD is required to have a minimum of 264MB RAM or the process will halt with an error. The recommended minimum is 364MB.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/VMware_Converter_manual301.pdf
More vQuotes

VMware vSphere

On this day in 2009, VMware vSphere, the next generation datacenter virtualization product and successor to Virtual Infrastructure 3 (VI3), was released boasting approximately 150 new features, new license tiers, and an amazing 350,000 I/O operations per second (IOPS). vSphere is a 64-bit only ESX host OS. I suspect a lot of 32-bit lab hardware was retired as a result of this architecture change.
More vQuotes

ESXTOP in batch mode

Run ESXTOP in batch mode using the -b switch along with a .csv file name. ie. esxtop -b > my_file.csv. The esxtop utility does not enforce a .csv file extension, however, post-processing tools require it. MS Perfmon, Excel & esxplot http://bit.ly/7mlFly can be used to view the .csv file after capture.

You can also run esxtop in replay mode on vm-support collection data with the command: esxtop -R [vm-support_path]
More vQuotes

VMFS extents feature

When using the VMFS extents feature, VMFS metadata is stored in the first extent (LUN) of the VMFS volume. SCSI reservations are tied to VMFS metadata. The net effect of VMFS extents + SCSI reservations by metadata updates is that the SCSI reservations will only impact the first VMFS extent or LUN. Performance on the remaining extents or LUNs should not be impacted.
More vQuotes

vNIC MAC address

Manually assign a vNIC MAC address in vSphere within the following range:
00:50:56:00:00:00 - 00:50:56:3F:FF:FF

Assigning a value greater than 00:50:56:3F:FF:FF risks conflict with MAC addresses generated by VMware Workstation or VMware Server products.

Example in .vmx file:
ethernet1.address = 00:50:56:00:00:01
ethernet1.addressType="static"
More vQuotes