Weblog.BassQ.nl » VMWare

vSphere 4.1 features list!

BassQ — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:35:03 +0000

Source; http://virtualization.info/en/news/2010/07/release-vmware-vsphere-4-1.html

As expected, VMware releases today a significant update for its vSphere virtual infrastructure.

vSphere 4.1 introduces an impressive number of new features that virtualization.info partially unveiled in May:

Scripted Install for ESXi. Scripted installation of ESXi to local and remote disks allows rapid deployment of ESXi to many machines. You can start the scripted installation with a CD-ROM drive or over the network by using PXE booting.
vSphere Client Removal from ESX/ESXi Builds. For ESX and ESXi, the vSphere Client is available for download from the VMware Web site. It is no longer packaged with builds of ESX and ESXi.
Boot from SAN. vSphere 4.1 enables ESXi boot from SAN (BFN). iSCSI, FCoE, and Fibre Channel boot are supported.

Hardware Acceleration with vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). ESX can offload specific storage operations to compliant storage hardware. With storage hardware assistance, ESX performs these operations faster and consumes less CPU, memory, and storage fabric bandwidth.
Storage Performance Statistics. vSphere 4.1 offers enhanced visibility into storage throughput and latency of hosts and virtual machines, and aids in troubleshooting storage performance issues. NFS statistics are now available in vCenter Server performance charts, as well as esxtop. New VMDK and datastore statistics are included. All statistics are available through the vSphere SDK.
Storage I/O Control. This feature provides quality-of-service capabilities for storage I/O in the form of I/O shares and limits that are enforced across all virtual machines accessing a datastore, regardless of which host they are running on. Using Storage I/O Control, vSphere administrators can ensure that the most important virtual machines get adequate I/O resources even in times of congestion.
iSCSI Hardware Offloads. vSphere 4.1 enables 10Gb iSCSI hardware offloads (Broadcom 57711) and 1Gb iSCSI hardware offloads (Broadcom 5709).
Network I/O Control. Traffic-management controls allow flexible partitioning of physical NIC bandwidth between different traffic types, including virtual machine, vMotion, FT, and IP storage traffic (vNetwork Distributed Switch only).
IPv6 Enhancements. IPv6 in ESX supports Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) with manual keying.
Load-Based Teaming. vSphere 4.1 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.
E1000 vNIC Enhancements. E1000 vNIC supports jumbo frames in 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.
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.
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.
VMware Fault Tolerance (FT) Enhancements. vSphere 4.1 introduces an FT-specific versioning-control mechanism that allows the Primary and Secondary VMs to run on FT-compatible hosts at different but compatible patch levels. vSphere 4.1 differentiates between events that are logged for a Primary VM and those that are logged for its Secondary VM, and reports why a host might not support FT. In addition, you can disable VMware HA when FT-enabled virtual machines are deployed in a cluster, allowing for cluster maintenance operations without turning off FT.
DRS Interoperability for VMware HA and Fault Tolerance (FT). FT-enabled virtual machines can take advantage of DRS functionality for load balancing and initial placement. In addition, VMware HA and DRS are tightly integrated, which allows VMware HA to restart virtual machines in more situations.
Enhanced Network Logging Performance. Fault Tolerance (FT) network logging performance allows improved throughput and reduced CPU usage. In addition, you can use vmxnet3 vNICs in FT-enabled virtual machines.
Concurrent VMware Data Recovery Sessions. vSphere 4.1 provides the ability to concurrently manage multiple VMware Data Recovery appliances.
vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) Enhancements. VADP now offers VSS quiescing support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. This enables application-consistent backup and restore operations for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 applications.
vCLI Enhancements. vCLI adds options for SCSI, VAAI, network, and virtual machine control, including the ability to terminate an unresponsive virtual machine. In addition, vSphere 4.1 provides controls that allow you to log vCLI activity.
Lockdown Mode Enhancements. VMware ESXi 4.1 lockdown mode allows the administrator to tightly restrict access to the ESXi Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) and Tech Support Mode (TSM). When lockdown mode is enabled, DCUI access is restricted to the root user, while access to Tech Support Mode is completely disabled for all users. With lockdown mode enabled, access to the host for management or monitoring using CIM is possible only through vCenter Server. Direct access to the host using the vSphere Client is not permitted.
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.
vCenter Converter Hyper-V Import. vCenter Converter allows users to point to a Hyper-V machine. Converter displays the virtual machines running on the Hyper-V system, and users can select a powered-off virtual machine to import to a VMware destination.
Enhancements to Host Profiles. You can 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.
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.
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.
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.
Improved Support for Handling Recalled Patches in vCenter Update Manager. Update Manager 4.1 immediately sends critical notifications about recalled ESX and related patches. In addition, Update Manager prevents you from installing a recalled patch that you might have already downloaded. This feature also helps you identify hosts where recalled patches might already be installed.
License Reporting Manager. The License Reporting Manager provides a centralized interface for all license keys for vSphere 4.1 products in a virtual IT infrastructure and their respective usage. You can view and generate reports on license keys and usage for different time periods with the License Reporting Manager. A historical record of the utilization per license key is maintained in the vCenter Server database.
Power Management Improvements. ESX 4.1 takes advantage of deep sleep states to further reduce power consumption during idle periods. The vSphere Client has a simple user interface that allows you to choose one of four host power management policies. In addition, you can view the history of host power consumption and power cap information on the vSphere Client Performance tab on newer platforms with integrated power meters.
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).
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 feature 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.
Memory Compression. Compressed memory is a new level of the memory hierarchy, between RAM and disk. Slower than memory, but much faster than disk, compressed memory improves the performance of virtual machines when memory is under contention, because less virtual memory is swapped to disk.
vMotion Enhancements. In vSphere 4.1, vMotion enhancements significantly reduce the overall time for host evacuations, with support for more simultaneous virtual machine migrations and faster individual virtual machine migrations. The result is a performance improvement of up to 8x for an individual virtual machine migration, and support for four to eight simultaneous vMotion migrations per host, depending on the vMotion network adapter (1GbE or 10GbE respectively).
ESX/ESXi Active Directory Integration. Integration with Microsoft Active Directory allows seamless user authentication for ESX/ESXi. You can maintain users and groups in Active Directory for centralized user management and you can assign privileges to users or groups on ESX/ESXi hosts. In vSphere 4.1, integration with Active Directory allows you to roll out permission rules to hosts by using Host Profiles.
Configuring 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.
Improvements in Enhanced vMotion Compatibility. vSphere 4.1 includes an 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 virtual machines, more timely error detection, better error messages, and the reduced need to restart virtual machines.
vCenter Update Manager Support for Provisioning, Patching, and Upgrading EMC’s ESX PowerPath Module. vCenter Update Manager can provision, patch, and upgrade third-party modules that you can install on ESX, such as EMC’s PowerPath multipathing software. Using the capability of Update Manager to set policies using the Baseline construct and the comprehensive Compliance Dashboard, you can simplify provisioning, patching, and upgrade of the PowerPath module at scale.
User-configurable Number of Virtual CPUs per Virtual Socket. You can configure virtual machines 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, virtual machines were restricted to having only one virtual CPU per virtual socket.
Expanded List of Supported Processors. The list of supported processors has been expanded for ESX 4.1. Among the supported processors is the Intel Xeon 7500 Series processor, code-named Nehalem-EX (up to 8 sockets).

More than that, with vSphere 4.1 VMware is enriching its offering for the SMB market, adding VMotion to the Essential Plus license:

Microsoft’s Hyper-V R2 vs. VMware’s vSphere: A feature comparison

BassQ — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:07:24 +0000

VMware and Microsoft are ramping up their virtualization games with relatively new releases. Scott Lowe compares and contrasts some of the major features in vSphere and Hyper-V R2.

Source: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=1820

Microsoft was late to the virtualization game, but the company has made gains against its primary competitor in the virtualization marketplace, VMware. In recent months, both companies released major updates to their respective hypervisors: Microsoft’s Hyper-V R2 and VMware’s vSphere. In this look at the hypervisor products from both companies, I’ll compare and contrast some of the products’ more common features and capabilities. I do not, however, make recommendations about which product might be right for your organization.

Table A compares items in four editions of vSphere and three available editions of Hyper-V R2. Below the table, I explain each of the comparison items. (Product note: With the release of vSphere, VMware has released an Enterprise Plus edition of its hypervisor product. Enterprise Plus provides an expanded set of capabilities that were not present in older product versions. Customers have to upgrade from Enterprise to Enterprise Plus in order to obtain these capabilities.)

Table A

Max host processors. Indicates the number of physical host processors that can be recognized by the system. Bear in mind that the Windows columns are Windows limits and not necessarily Hyper-V limits.

Max cores/processor. How many processor cores per physical processor are recognized?

Max virtual SMP. In an individual virtual machine, this indicates the maximum number of supported virtual processors. Note: This is a maximum value; not every guest operating system can support the maximum number of virtual processors.

Max host RAM (GB). The maximum amount of RAM recognized by the hypervisor.

Max RAM/vm. The maximum amount of RAM that can be allocated to an individual virtual machine.

Failover nodes. The maximum number of physical hosts that can be clustered together. N/A indicates that failover clustering is not supported for that particular hypervisor edition.

Memory overcommit. Does the hypervisor support memory overcommit? Memory overcommitment is a technique available in vSphere that allows administrators to allocate more RAM to virtual machines than is physically available in the host. There are numerous pro and con articles about this topic, but it’s clear that having the ability to allocate more resources than are physically available increases overall virtual machine density. The decision to use memory overcommit in a production environment is up to each organization. That said, in my opinion, when used in the right circumstances, I can see great benefit in this feature.

Transparent page sharing. Transparent page sharing is one method by which memory overcommitment is achieved. With this technique, common code shared between virtual machines is, itself, virtualized. Let’s say that you have 100 virtual machines running Windows XP for VDI. Using transparent page sharing, RAM isn’t necessarily a major limiting factor when it comes to desktop density on the server. VMware has an excellent example of this technique in action.

Live Migration/VMotion. The ability for the hypervisor to migrate virtual machines between host servers without significant downtime. This is considered one of the most significant availability benefits provided by virtualization solutions.

Simultaneous Live Migration. Can the product utilize its Live Migration capabilities to move multiple virtual machines simultaneously between nodes?

Live guests per host. The number of virtual machines that can be powered on for a maxed-out host. In the real world, I’d be extraordinarily surprised to see anyone getting close to these limits. Virtualization is a great way to lower costs, but there are limits.

Live guests/HA cluster node. If you’re running your hypervisor in a cluster, this is the maximum number of virtual machines that can be active on any single host in the cluster. For vSphere with update 1, if you have eight or fewer cluster hosts, you can run up to 160 VMs per host. With nine or more cluster hosts, that number drops to 40.

Distributed Resource Scheduler. DRS is a technology that enables the migration of virtual machines between hosts based on business rules. This can be a boon for organizations with strict SLAs.

Snapshots per VM. The maximum number of snapshots that can be taken of an individual virtual machine. A snapshot is a point-in-time image of a virtual machine that can be used as part of a backup and recovery mechanism. I find snapshots incredibly useful, particularly on the workstation side of the equation, where a lot of “playing” takes place.

Thin Provisioning. One decision that has to be made early on in the life of any server (virtual or physical) is how much storage to allocate to the system. Too much storage and you waste valuable disk space — too little storage and services crash. In order to maintain reliable services, most IT shops overprovision storage to make sure that it doesn’t run out; but that conservatism adds up over time. Imagine if you have 100 VMs all with 4 or 5 GB of “wiggle room” going unused. With thin provisioning, you can have the best of both worlds. You can provision enough disk space to meet your comfort level, but under the hood, the hypervisor won’t allocate it all. As space begins to run low, the hypervisor will make more space available up to the maximum volume size. Although thin provisioning shouldn’t be used for massive workloads, it can be a huge boon to organizations that want conservatism without breaking the bank.

Storage Live Migration. This feature enables the live migration of a virtual machine’s disk files between storage arrays and adds an additional level of availability potential to a virtual environment.

Distributed Switch. VMware and Microsoft have virtual switches in their products, but only VMware has taken it one step further with the introduction of vSphere Enterprise Plus’ Distributed Switch. According to VMware, “Distributed Switch maintains network runtime state for VMs as they move across multiple hosts, enabling inline monitoring and centralized firewall services. It provides a framework for monitoring and maintaining the security of virtual machines as they move from physical server to physical server and enables the use of third party virtual switches such as the Cisco Nexus 1000V to extend familiar physical network features and controls to virtual networks.” In short, this new capability increases VMware’s availability and security capabilities.

Direct I/O. The ability for a virtual machine to bypass the hypervisor layer and directly access a physical I/O hardware device. There is limited support for this capability in vSphere; the product supports direct I/O operations to a few storage and networking controllers. Called VMDirectPath I/O, this feature can improve overall performance since it eliminates the “virtualization penalty” that can take place when hardware access is run through the hypervisor. There are some major disadvantages to VMDirectPath; for example, VMotion can’t work anymore because of the hardware need. (Note: This feature is different than direct access to disks, which Hyper-V does support.)

Max. partition size (TB). What is the largest partition supported by the hypervisor? Although VHD-based volumes, such as those used by Hyper-V R2, can be up to 2 TB in size, read this blog by Brian Henderson for insight into maximum Windows partition sizes, particularly if you bypass the VHD option altogether and use disks directly.

Application firewall (vShield). According to VMware “VMware vShield Zones enables you to monitor, log and block inter-VM traffic within an ESX host or between hosts in a cluster, without having to divert traffic externally through static physical chokepoints. You can bridge, firewall, or isolate virtual machine between multiple zones defined by your logical organizational and trust boundaries. Both allowed and blocked activities are logged and can be graphed or analyzed to a fine-grained level.” In other words, you don’t need to run traffic through external switches and routers to protect applications from one another.

Virtual instance rights. This is a Microsoft-only right that can seriously lower the overall cost of running Hyper-V R2 in a Windows-only environment. If you use the Data Center edition of Windows, you can run as many Windows Server-based virtual machines as you like without incurring additional sever licensing costs.

Hypervisor licensing. The method by which the product is licensed. Either per host or per processor.

Manage your VMware environment from your Iphone

BassQ — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:00:38 +0000

Want to manage your VMware virtual environment on the go? Now there’s an app for that! VManage is an application developed to allow the IT administrator to view critical environment data about their virtual infrastructure as well as perform fundamental tasks such as VMotion’ing from anywhere at any time. Viewing basic performance data (more advanced data to come) is as easy as selecting a Virtual Machine or Host and examining the details. Simply add a Virtual Center server address, credentials and a VPN if necessary and that’s it. So if you’re an IT administrator who doesn’t spend every waking moment in front of your PC, this is the tool for you.

Environment Configuration Note:
The Virtual Center server by default exposes port 443 for the web service. This port will need to be available to the iPhone/iPod Touch in order for the VManage application to be able to interact with it. This can be achieved via a VPN or exposing the port to the web.

Application Configuration Note:
The iPhone/iPod Touch settings application needs to be set as follows …

server: https:///sdk     **required**
domain: AD Domain Name    **optional**
username: AD User **required**
password: AD password    **required**

Running VSphere client on Windows 7

BassQ — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:46:44 +0000

After the installation you wont get the vsphere client working on Windows 7, it installed fine but when I try and login to an esx server,you get an error:

Error Parsing the server “192.168.1.10″ “clients.xml” file Login will continue contact your system administrator

Clicking ok gives another error

The type initializer for “VirtualInfrastrcture.Utils.HttpWebRequestProxy” threw an exception

Clicking ok returns to the login dialogue.

UPDATE: Good News – This issue has now been resolved in VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 1 (U1).

So here is the solution;

http://www.techhead.co.uk/running-vmware-vsphere-client-on-windows-7

Here’s a possible workaround for this problem.

1. Obtain a copy of System.dll from the link above.

2. Create a folder in the Windows 7 machine where the vSphere client is installed and copy the file from step 1 into this folder. For example, create the folder under the vSphere client launcher installation directory (+%ProgramFiles%\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\Lib +).

3. In the vSphere client launcher directory, open the VpxClient.exe.config file in a text editor and add a element and a element as shown below. Save the file.

……………

3. Create a new ‘System’ variable called ‘DEVPATH’ and assign the following variable value:

C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher\Lib

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate available now! FREE!

BassQ — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:27:22 +0000

Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 R2 is a stand-alone product that provides a reliable and optimized virtualization solution enabling organizations to improve server utilization and reduce costs. With the addition of new features such as live migration and expanded processor and memory support for host systems, it allows organizations to consolidate workloads onto a single physical server and is a good solution for organizations who are consolidating servers as well as for development and test environments.

By having the ability to plug into existing IT infrastructures Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 enables companies to reduce costs, improve utilization and provision new servers. It allows IT professionals to leverage existing patching, provisioning, management and support tools and processes. IT Professionals can continue to leverage their individual skills and the collective knowledge of Microsoft tools, minimizing the learning curve to manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. In addition, with Microsoft providing comprehensive support for Microsoft applications and heterogeneous guest operating systems support, customers can virtualize with confidence and peace of mind.

Note: This is a pre-release version of Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 R2 and not intended to be used in a production environment.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate! (Free Live Migration/HA Anyone?)

The Virtualization team is pleased to announce the availability of the Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate for download. Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, our free standalone hypervisor, represents our continued commitment to providing high performance, hypervisor based virtualization for everyone, especially small and mid-market customers. This release underscores our customer focus by adding key new capabilities such as Live Migration and High Availability (and more.). The Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 Release Candidate is available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx

Free Live Migration and High Availability? Really?

A couple weeks ago, Zane Adam first blogged the news that Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 would include Live Migration and High Availability at no charge. The response from our customers was "AWESOME!! When is the final release?" Understandably, the phone’s been ringing off the hook, my inbox has been on overdrive and some folks in the blogosphere have been trying to imply that there are some strings attached. So, I wanted to take a moment to provide more details about the upcoming Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 release and free Live Migration & High Availability.

Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Availability

When Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 goes gold and is released to manufacturing (RTM) the bits will be available as a free download here:

http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx

Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 will be available worldwide in 11 languages.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 includes Live Migration and High Availability . Period . No Strings Attached .

Live Migration is a great solution for planned downtime such as servicing the underlying hardware like adding more memory, storage or applying a BIOS update. Simply Live Migrate the virtual machines to another server (without downtime) shutdown the physical server and perform the maintenance. When the maintenance is complete, Live Migrate the virtual machines back and your done.

High Availability is a great solution for unplanned downtime. For example, suppose someone accidentally unplugs the wrong power cable on a server. The virtual machine on the server that just unexpectedly went down will automatically restart on another node without any user intervention .

Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 includes both these capabilities as well as our new Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) capabilities to simplify storage management and run multiple virtual machines from a single LUN.

Managing Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Live Migration and High Availability can be managed in a few different ways:

Failover Cluster Manager/Hyper-V Manager from a Windows Server 2008 R2 Server OR,
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 OR,
Using the FREELY (there’s that word again) available Failover Cluster Manager/Hyper-V Manager for Windows 7 .

So, as you can see, there are a few different options depending on your needs and option three gives you Live Migration and High Availability at zero cost .

BTW: If you decide to go with option #2 System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, you certainly can do a lot more such as:

Heterogeneous Virtualization Management
Rich PowerShell Support for Datacenter Automation
Maintenance mode
Virtual Machine Library Support
Templates, Clones, Sysprep Integration
Performance Resource Optimization (PRO)

.and a lot, lot more. But, I digress.

$$$ Comparison

Let’s take a look at a few cluster configurations and compare costs for Live Migration and High Availability functionality.

	Hyper-V Server 2008 R2	VMware vSphere
3 Node Cluster; 2 Socket Servers	Free	$13,470
3 Node Cluster; 4 Socket Servers	Free	$26,940
5 Node Cluster; 2 Socket Servers	Free	$22,450
5 Node Cluster; 4 Socket Servers	Free	$44,900

You may be wondering, "Did he choose the most expensive VMware configuration?" On the contrary, I chose the least expensive configuration ($2245 per processor) that offers both Live Migration and High Availability.

You may be wondering, "Why isn’t System Center management represented here?"

In this example, I simply wanted to compare the lowest cost for Live Migration and High Availability functionality from Microsoft and VMware with some real world configurations that a small/medium business may use. I will post a follow-up blog that adds management for small/medium businesses. As for enterprise customers, they typically have larger server farms with more sophisticated management requirements. That’s another blog for another time.

You may also be wondering, "Why isn’t the cost of guest operating systems included here?"

Simple, neither Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 nor VMware include any guest operating system licenses so if you need to run 4 copies of Windows Server, you need to purchase the appropriate license. That cost is the same whether you’re running Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 or VMware so I didn’t bother to include it.

While VMware claims to be more affordable the facts are clear and the value of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is undeniable. Microsoft offers exceptional value especially for small and mid-market customers who have told us for years how they would like Live Migration/High Availability functionality and simply can’t afford it.

Those days are over.

At this point you may be thinking we’re crazy to provide virtualization live migration and high availability at no cost. Well, I wish we could say we were first, but the folks at Xen have been providing free Live Migration and HA for a few months. In fact, the only one still charging for Live Migration and High Availability ($2245+ per socket) is VMware.

Now that’s crazy.

Jeff Woolsey

Principal Group Program Manager

Windows Server, Hyper-V

VMware vSphere

BassQ — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:43:18 +0000

There’s hardly any point in covering the announcements of today. There are so many people blogging right now that no one will have the chance to keep up with reading. That’s why I decided not to write or copy any of the announcements. Of course I just might give my thoughts on the webcast this evening but that’s probably it… Anyway, I divided it up in two major sections “News” and “Previews” and within these sections VMware and of course “Bloggers Community”. I will keep updating this post, make sure to visit it again.

News / Coverage

VMware

VMware.com (includes podcast) – vSphere Product page
VMware.com (press) – Press Kit
VMware.com (press) – VMware Enables Users to Easily Test-Drive Cloud Computing through the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace (VAM) and VMware vCloud Service Provider Free Trials
VMware.com (press) – VMware vSphere 4 Provides ‘Always On IT’ for SMB and Branch Office IT Environments With Low Cost, High Availability Solutions
VMware.com (press) – VMware Unveils the Industry’s First Operating System for Building the Internal Cloud—VMware vSphere 4
VMware.com (press) – VMware vSphere 4 Launch Supported by Broad Virtualization Ecosystem
VMware.com (press) – VMware vSphere 4 Sets New Records in Virtualization Performance
VMTN – Introducing VMware vSphere 4 – The Industry’s First Cloud Operating System
VMTN – VMware vSphere Resources And Webcasts Customers Should Know About!
VMTN Community – VMware vSphere Community is here – plus some rearrangement…
Vroom – Database sizing charts for vSphere 4.0
Networking – vSphere launches
VMware (pdf’s) – vSphere list of Key Features
VMware (pdf’s) – vStorage: What’s New Whitepaper
VMware (pdf’s) – vNetwork: What’s New Whitepaper
VMware (pdf’s) – vSphere Pricing, Packaging, and Licensing Whitepaper

Bloggers Community

itsjustanotherlayer.com – vSphere 4 – the next great thing
blog.VirtualTacIt.com – VMware vSphere: Not your average Cloud-OS… oh wait the only Cloud-OS
Blog.Fosketts.net – Storage changes in the VMware vSphere 4 family
VMETC.com – vSphere announced. Now what for VMware customers?
BriandMadden.com – VMware announces vSphere – the foundation for the next generation datacenter
vinternals.com – VMware Slaps Enterprise and Cisco In Face, Opens Doors For Competitors
technodrone.blogspot.com – vSphere 4, so what is new?
Dabcc.com – vSphere, initial comparison with Hyper-v and Xen
VMware-land.com – My growing collection of vSphere links
Virtualgeek.typepad.com – One man’s take on the vSphere launch
VMwareTips.com – VMware vSphere launch event, onsite coverage
Mikedipetrillo.com – VMware Launches vSphere
Ideationcloud.com – VMware unveils vSphere 4.0; calls it Cloud Operating System
sqlchicken.blogspot.com – VMware unveils new vSphere 4
virtualizationexchange.blogspot.com – Breaking news from VMware: vSphere 4 unveiled
Hypervizor.com – The ultimate vSphere4 learning path: Videos, Webcasts, Podcasts, Free online classes and much more
Latogalabs.com – VMware Announces vSphere 4 Cloud OS
ROIDude.typepad.com – VMware has its Head in the Clouds, but its Feet are Planted Firmly on the Ground
TheVirtualBlackhole.com – Partner Exchange and the vSphere Press Release
vmjunkie.wordpress.com – vSphere Launch
chucksblog.emc.com – The real impact of vSphere
chucksblog.emc.com – vSphere as an I/O engine
OzVMs.com – vSphere – Skillsets and VCP
OzVMs.com – Paul Maritz quotes from the vSphere launch
OzVMs.com – Efficiency, control and choice – vSphere launch review
VirtualLifestyle.nl – One big step for VMware, one giant leap for virtualization: VMware launches vSphere 4
NTPRO.nl – VMware vSphere(TM) 4 Sets New Records in Virtualization Performance
NTPRO.nl – VMware vSphere(TM) 4 Provides ‘Always On IT’ for SMB and Branch Office IT Environments With Low Cost, High Availability Solutions
NTPRO.nl – VMware Enables Users to Easily Test-Drive Cloud Computing Through the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace (VAM) and VMware vCloud(TM) Service Provider Free Trials
NTPRO.nl – VMware vSphereTM 4 Launch Supported by Broad Virtualization Ecosystem
NTPRO.nl – VMware Unveils the Industry’s First Operating System for Building the Internal Cloud–VMware vSphere(TM) 4
NTPRO.nl – VMware vSphere Podcasts
rtfm-ed.co.uk – vSphere4 Pricing – From the Press Release
rtfm-ed.co.uk – vSphere launch video
VMGuru.nl -VMware announces vSphere 4
MalaysiaVM.com – VMware vSphere 4
MalaysiaVM.com – 6 cores limitation per socket for vSphere Enterprise
Boche.net – vSphere licensing notables
virtualization-spotlight.com – VMware Unveils vSphere 4
kevinkomiegasstorageblog.blogspot.com – VMware vSphere of influence
Techtarget.com – A guide to VMware vSphere 4.0
blog.ScottLowe.org – Mastering VMware vSphere 4.0
VirtualizationReview.com – Breaking down vSphere pricing
Gabesvirtualworld.com – List of VMware FT compatible CPUs
thestoragearchitect.com – Enterprise computing – VMware announces vSphere 4.0
virtualisedreality.wordpress.com – vSphere launch

Previews

VMware

Bloggers Community

Boche.net – A random collection of what’s new vSphere eye candy
Virtualgeek.typepad.com – Incoming treat for EMC CLARiiON/Celerra+VMware Customers
Virtualgeek.typepad.com – A sneak peek at vSphere 4 I/O goodness (and world records)
Yellow-Bricks.com – Storage views, exploring the next version of ….
Yellow-Bricks.com – Alarm Actions, exploring the new version of ESX/vCenter
Yellow-Bricks.com – Storage VMotion, exploring the next version of ESX/vCenter
Yellow-Bricks.com – Resizing your VMFS the right way, exploring the next version of ESX/vCenter
Yellow-Bricks.com – Pluggable Storage Architecture, exploring the next version of ESX/vCenter
Yellow-Bricks.com – iSCSI multipathing with esxcli! Exploring the next version of ESX
Yellow-Bricks.com – esxcfg-scsidevs, Exploring the next version of ESX!
Yellow-Bricks.com – Disabling the VMFS-2 module! Exploring the next generation of ESX
Yellow-Bricks.com – VMFS recognized as a snapshot what to do? Exploring the next version of ESX…
NTPRO.nl – CPU compatibility with VMware Fault Tolerance
NTPRO.nl – Datastore Performance Charts
NTPRO.nl – Migration with Storage vMotion
NTPRO.nl – How to set up an email event trigger
NTPRO.nl – Using vNetwork Distributed Switches and dvPort Groups
NTPRO.nl – New Alarm Actions
NTPRO.nl – Acknowledge Triggered Alarms
NTPRO.nl – Managing VMware vApp
NTPRO.nl – Zoom In or Out of the Map View
NTPRO.nl – New alarm definitions in the next version
NTPRO.nl – Generate virtual machine desktop shortcut
NTPRO.nl – EMC Powerpath/VE for VMware vSphere
MalaysiaVM.com – Windows 7 on vSphere
MalaysiaVM.com – Virtual CPU Increase on Demand in vSphere
MalaysiaVM.com – ESX Host Profiles with vSphere
MalaysiaVM.com – Match RDM to Actual LUN on SAN Storage with vSphere
MalaysiaVM.com – Storage VMotion through GUI in vSphere
MalaysiaVM.com – Memory Hot Add for Virtual Machine
MalaysiaVM.com – Storage Management in VMware vSphere
Vinf.net – Remote in-place upgrade from ESX 3.5 to vSphere

How to convert VMWare image to Hyper-V images?

BassQ — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:58:45 +0000

Here’s a small how-to based on my experiences:

1) Uninstall VM tools from your VM

2) Shutdown the VM

If your VMs are based on SCSI drives (like mine were – because VMware recommends SCSI) and the operating systems are Windows XP, 2003 or earlier then you have to add the IDE driver to your VM before you shut it down in VMware.

Otherwise you will end up with a converted VM that starts up in Hyper-V with a blue screen of death (BSOD) and 0x0000007B – “Inaccessible Boot Device” error. This is due to the fact that your converted VM will have no Primary IDE Channel and Hyper-V will presume that your converted disk is IDE type and located on the Primary IDE Channel.

Doing a Windows Repair Install can fix the 0x7B Inaccessible Boot Device error – but it’s both time consuming and the result might not be good. (Believe me – I had to redo a migration of a SharePoint installation because a Windows Repair Install messed it up. Luckily I then came up with the solution described below instead).

Please note that adding a temporary IDE disk to your VM is not necessary with VMs running Windows Vista or Windows 2008 – they seem to detect the Primary IDE Channel during initial boot phase.

3) Add a new IDE disk drive to your VM: (any size will do)

Make sure that you select “Adapter: IDE 0 Device: 0” under “Virtual Device Node” while creating the new disk (otherwise you might end up with yet another SCSI disk)

4) Boot up your virtual machine with both drives connected and check that it detects your new IDE drive (along with a primary IDE channel and a disk device driver). You should be able to see the new drive as "not initialized" in Disk Management.

5) Power off your virtual machine and remove the newly created IDE disk from your VM (you can delete it from disk as well). Do not power on your VMware Machine again!

6) Now convert your VMDK file to VHD format using the newest Vmdk2Vhd utility (currently version 1.0.13) that can be downloaded from http://vmtoolkit.com.

7) You can now uninstall VMware Server and install Hyper-V + current Windows Updates on your host server

Create a new Virtual Machine in Hyper-V. Make sure you select “Use an existing virtual hard disk” and select the VHD file that you just created.

9) Power it on, Install “Integration Services” and reboot when prompted:

10) Assign the original IP address(es) to your new network card(s)

11) Check device manager

12) Do another reboot

13) Check that all your applications and services are running

14) Done!

Note: if you have Win2008 VM’s then it’s not necessary to add a temporary IDE disk during migration but you might want to copy the relevant KB949219 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949219) update package to your VM before converting it. Otherwise it will start up with three warnings in the Device Manager for “Microsoft VMBus Video Device”, “Microsoft VMBus HID Miniport” and “Microsoft VMBus Network Adapter” – hence you will have no network access. I worked around it by “burning” the KB949219 updates to an ISO file using “ISO recorder“ (http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com) and mounting the ISO file to my VM.

Enable ssh on ESXi 3.5

BassQ — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:30:21 +0000

First ESXi shell access;

How to get shell access to your VMWare ESXi server?
By default the VMWare ESXi server don’t offer shell access (through the menu).
But by doing the following, you will be able to access the shell (although its limited):

1. Hook up a screen and a keyboard to the VMWae ESXi server.
2. Press “Alt+F1″
3. Write “unsupported” and press Enter (if you screw up, and think you’ve typed something wrong,
you can use Ctrl+U to clear the input field).
4. Enter the root password, an voila, shell access.

Then enable ssh on ESXi 3.5

By default, ssh access is disabled on VMware ESXi 3.5, so how do i enable ssh on VMware ESXi 3.5?

1. Type “vi /etc/inetd.conf” and press “enter”.

2. Locate the line that starts with “#ssh stream tcp nowait root /sbin/dropbearmulti…….”

3. Move the marker over the “#” and press “x”.

4. Press “Escape” and write “:wq”, then press “enter”.

5. Type “/sbin/services.sh restart” and press “Enter”. Note: If you are running ESXi 3.5 Update 2, the services.sh no longer restarts the inetd process. You will have to manually kill the inetd process, in order to restart it and enable ssh access without a reboot. Type “ps | grep inetd” and press “enter”. You will then see something similiar to “1289 1289 busybox inetd”. Then write “kill -HUP 1289″, and remember to write the number “ps | grep inetd” returns to you!

VMKUSAGE is back! in VC 2.5 U4

BassQ — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:37:21 +0000

If you have been working with ESX for a while, you might remember VMKUSAGE on the MUI (the old ESX web interface), well it is finally back again. VMware released yesterday Update 4 for VC2.5 and ‘included’ a new plugin. It is not part of the normal install or in my case upgrade, and the install procedure might scare you away, but it is worth it!

If you want to use this, please check out this knowledge base article (http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1008296 ). If you are like me, upgrading your VC, make sure you stop your webaccess service before the upgrade, else you have to uninstall the service and start over again (see this kb article http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1008330 ). One more tip, if you are using SQL Express, read this KB article (http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1008329)

Well after you get it all working, you will see that on any host, resource pool or VM view you have a new tab (not on your datacenter for some silly reason).

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Extend boot volume on Windows Server 2000/2003

BassQ — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:07:19 +0000

Before you begin, make sure that you do not have an active snapshot on the VM, extending a virtual disk with a snapshot will cause corrpution

Extend the boot volume of Windows Server 2003 Virtual Machine
To start, I have a Windows Server 2003 Virtual Machine that has a 5.3G disk allocated to it, I need to expand this disk to 10G.

Step 1: Power off the virtual machine that holds the boot volume that you want to extend.

Step 2: Make a backup copy of your virutal disk, this is optional but if you mess up don’t call me unless you’re willing to pay.

Step 3: From the service console, increase the size of the .dsk or .vmdk virtual disk file. This can also be accomplished through the Virtual Infrastructure Client if you are using VirtualCenter 2.x+.

[root@esx-test local]# ls -lah test.vmdk
-rw——- 1 root root 5.4G Jul 18 13:57 test.vmdk

Extend the virtual disk with vmkfstools. The input to the -X switch is the size that you want the disk file to be not the size you want to extend the disk file by .

[root@esx-test local]# vmkfstools -X 10G test.vmdk

View the new size of test.vmdk

[root@esx-test local]# ls -lah test.vmdk
-rw——- 1 root root 10G Jul 18 13:57 test.vmdk

Step 4: For this step you will need an additional Virtual Machine running Windows Server 2003. Power off the second Virtual Machine, and add the disk from the first Virtual Machine to it through the mui. Power up the second Virtual Machine and verify that the imported disk has unallocated space on it.

From the run menu type "diskpart.exe" to enter the command line utility to resize disk partitions in Windows Server 2003.

The command list volume will show you all the available volumes. Select your volume as shown below. select volume 1 corresponds to the "D" volume that I want to exntend. Finally extend the volume with the extend command.

If all goes well, the partition will be immediately exnteded under the Disk Management snap in.

Step 5: Shut down the second Virtual Machine and remove the disk from the second Virtual Machine. Power on the first Virtual Machine and check out your new space.

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Best practices for deploying Citrix on vmware ESX

BassQ — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:27:22 +0000

First and foremost: this tuning list is my own experience and the experience of several users on the VMware forum . Your mileage may vary.

The goods:

Virtual Infrastructure 3
Windows 2003 Std (or Enterprise) Edition R2 (x86, not x64)
Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 (yes, I know, the old one )

The tips:

First this: it all depends on the applications used! Context switches is the key here…
Use Windows 2003 , not Windows 2000
Don’t P2V your servers, but use clean templates
Make sure the correct HAL (single or multi) is installed in the virtual machine. Otherwise, your vCPU will spike.
Always assign 1vCPU . If necessary, add a 2^nd vCPU. Do not use 4 vCPUs!
Use 2 GB to start. Scale up to +-4 GB of vRAM if necessary
Use 1 .vmdk for your system partition (C:\ or other remapped drive letter) and 1 separate .vmdk for your program files.
Put the page file on the 2^nd .vmdk
Important: disconnect any .iso file in your virtual CD-Rom
Use roaming profiles and cleanup your profiles at logoff
Disable sound for your published apps
Install the UPH service (download it here )
User sessions: for me, 30 users on a VM is the sweet spot. Do not expect to get as many users on it as on a physical box!
Scale out, not up. A major advantage of VM is to clone/NewSID/sysprep existing servers and put them into your existing Citrix farm. Just stop & disable your IMA service , clean up your RMLocalDB (if you use enterprise) and NewSid the thing. Refer to this support article for more info.
Use dual core or quad core systems. This because ESX will have more CPU to schedule its vCPUs on.
Don’t ever use a 2 vCPU Citrix virtual machine in a 2 pCPU physical machine!
Do not install the memory ballooning driver while installing the VMware Tools
Do not use a complete installation Vmware tools : there is an issue with roaming profiles and the shared folders component. See my previous article for more info.
Disable COM ports, hyperthreading, visual effects & use speedscreen technology where possible.
Use snapshots when installing applications or patching your servers (yes! With VMware you can do this!). In case of disaster, you can still revert to the original working server without using backups. Make sure all snapshots are removed ASAP when finished!
Always check that there are no snapshot leftovers (f.e. the infamous _VCB-BACKUP_ when using VCB)
Don’t forget you can use DRS rules to run your citrix servers on separate physical hosts.
Check out this vmworld 2006 presentation
And last but not least: do not forget to read ESX’s (excellent) performance tuning white paper .

Source: http://virtrix.blogspot.com/2007/03/vmware-best-practices-for-deploying.html

XenServer Is Now Free

BassQ — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:05:46 +0000

Days ago, this announcement was made by Citrix:

XenServer, our enterprise virtual infrastructure platform is now free (including resource pooling and live relo), and we have announced Citrix Essentials for XenServer, and Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V as our virtualization management portfolio that offers a rich set of automated functions that drive the compatible virtualization layers beneath – the free Hyper-V hypervisor from Microsoft, and the free XenServer Enterprise virtual infrastructure platform from Citrix. Finally, and most importanly, we announced a powerful go-to-market roadmap with Microsoft.

Response to our announcements has been extremely positive, from our partner Microsoft to our channel partners and resellers, and many many customers and users. There are the expected nay-sayers too, but someone had to drink the only thing that you get free from our competitor – VMware koolaid.

That’s a pretty serious offering for free. Here’s a comparison chart they offer at their site:

Companies who are just now seriously looking into virtualization are going to be hard-pressed to pony up the cash VMWare is asking for their VI product when you can pretty much get the same functionality for free from Citrix. VMWare is going to have to do something in response to stay competitive, especially with the economy in the shape it’s in right now. I can’t wait to see what that will be.

VMware vCenter Converter released

BassQ — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:05:27 +0000

VMware vCenter Converter can run on a wide variety of hardware and supports most commonly used versions of the Microsoft Windows and Linux* operating systems. With this robust, enterprise class migration tool you can:

Quickly and reliably convert local and remote physical machines into virtual machines without any disruption or downtime.
Complete multiple conversions simultaneously with a centralized management console and an intuitive conversion wizard.
Convert other virtual machine formats such as Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server or backup images of physical machines such as Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery or Norton Ghost to VMware virtual machines.
Restore VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) images of virtual machines to running virtual machines.
Clone and backup physical machines to virtual machines as part of your disaster recovery plan.

Download your copy here: https://www.vmware.com/download/converter/

*Linux P2V support is available for Standalone version only

New VMware Visio Shapes released

BassQ — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:03:07 +0000

I just saw a nice present in one of my RSS feeds:

ThinApp-Stencil- Objects for ThinApp
Build your Own-Stencil – Stand-alone objectsto create your own diagrams
VM-STencil – Objects that are related Virtual Machines
VMware-Stencil – General Objects for VMware
Products-Stencil – Diagrams and objects that are related to VMware products or technologies

Grab your own copy here: http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1346

An introduction to VMware View 3

BassQ — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:10:34 +0000

In this three-part article series, Roland van der Kruk, a freelance consultant in The Netherlands, takes a look at the new features of VMware View 3, as well as best practices learned while doing a deployment for a customer. Part 1 provides information and insight on new features, Part 2 looks at Linked Clones, and Part 3 will look at special considerations and best practices for deployment.

Part 1 of 3 – An introduction to VMware View 3 features and best practices

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/guestbloggers/archive/2009/01/15/an-introduction-to-vmware-view-3-features-and-best-practices-part-1-of-3.aspx

Introduction

Early December 2008, VMware released their new product for the VDI market, VMware View 3.0. As a rather substantial update to the former version, VMware VDM 2.0, apparently the product name also had to undergo a change to underline the differences between the new product and its predecessor. In this article I will discuss the (new) features in View 3.0 and the way they work. I will first describe the components on which the product is based. Then I will focus on the different deployment types possible with View 3.0 and what happens during and after deploying different types of ‘desktop pools’.

My experience with the new product is mainly based on an implementation that I did for a customer, who had a specific use case to provide desktop operating systems to developers around the globe. I will sometimes refer to other use cases as there are quite a few, however perhaps the biggest question that everyone probably has will remain unanswered, as the technology that makes up VDI is still developing. Where we can speak of an accepted and well known technology like Citrix XenApp, VDI is not nearly there yet. The question of how VDI will result in better return on investment than desktop deployment methods being used for many years now is not clear. It all depends on use cases and things like high availability requirements and hardware cost. Financial differences and justifications for using VDI or a traditional desktop model are not discussed in this article.

Part 2 of 3 – Linked Clones

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/guestbloggers/archive/2009/01/18/an-introduction-to-vmware-view-3-part-2-of-3-linked-clones.aspx

Linked Clones

The big question to most people is probably: ‘What are linked clones and how do they work?’. Some of you may expect similar functionality to Citrix Provisioning Server where optimization in disk space can be significantly realized, and indeed VMware does somewhat the same, but with very different technology. Let’s see how VMware does it.

The essence of linked clones is Thin Provisioning; saving on expensive storage cost. Thin provisioning with View 3.0 can be realized using a “master virtual machine”, which is just a regular virtual machine that you create and then take a snapshot. That virtual machine will be used as the basis for rapid and thin OS deployment. Please notice that I mentioned a virtual machine “snapshot”, not a virtual machine “template”.

Part 3 of 3 – Special Considerations and Best Practices

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/guestbloggers/archive/2009/01/26/an-introduction-to-vmware-view-3-part-3-of-3-special-considerations-and-best-practices.aspx

High available, secure remote access

Unfortunately, a high available configuration to access VMware View while being outside the corporate network can be very different between organizations. I have been doing some research reading the VMware VDM 2 Load Balancing Guide to find out more about load balancing and secure remote access. In today’s enterprise environments, gateway devices like Citrix Netscaler/Access Gateway or Cisco ASA are more or less common practice. They are configured as a mandatory termination point for sessions originating from outside the corporate network connecting to resources inside the corporate network.