ESX on myvirtualcloud.net

TPS, Large Memory Pages and your VDI environment

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 20:19:00 +0000

If you have been running VMware View 4.0 or greater the chances are that you have vSphere 4.0 U2 or vSphere 4.1 deployed in your VDI infrastructure. You may have VMware Infrastructure 3.5 U5 but I am hoping that at this stage you have already been trough the upgrade.

Increase VDI consolidation ratio with TPS tuning on ESX

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:47:00 +0000

In ESX, the VMware Kernel scans the guest physical memory pages randomly with a base scan rate specified by Mem.ShareScanTime, which specifies the desired time to scan the virtual machine’s entire guest memory. The default value for Mem.ShareScanTime is 60 minutes.

How to script Datastore Multipathing change using PowerShell

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:01:00 +0000

There is a recurring situation that I face whenever I am deploying a new VMware View environment (also applicable to any vSphere deployment) . Due to natural limitations on number of IOPS per datastore (LUN), VMware recommends that you size your datastores for a maximum of 64 virtual desktops. This number could be higher, however you will need to pay attention to the number of IOPS required to support the workload, and verify that each LUN and backend array/spindles are able to provide the required performance. Normally this performance is measured by the latency number between I/O requests. There are references that mention that if I/O latency is higher than 10 milliseconds on average and higher than 20 milliseconds at peak your workload is under I/O contention.

vCenter Fail to Launch Virtual Machine Console

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:51:00 +0000

I have seen this issue many times. If vCenter VM management works fine but there is a problem launching the Virtual Machine Console and the error says: “Unable to connect to the MKS: Host address lookup for server servername failed: No such host is known” check the DNS resolution at the workstation running vCenter client. It should be able to resolve the host running the VM.

vSphere Host Profiles Deep Dive

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:00:00 +0000

It was nice to see my blog posts about “Your Organization’s Desktop Virtualization Project – Part 1 and 2” for the first making to the Top 5 Planet V12n blog posts week 45. It was energizing and gave me confidence that I am heading in the right direction with this blog.

Connections and Ports in ESX and ESXi

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:25:00 +0000

I have previously in the post “PCI DSS, Network Ports and your VMware Environment” discussed the network port requirements for deploying PCI frameworks, tightening your environment or just relaxing firewall rules.

Today I came across a diagram and a great tool to help administrators to identify these connections and the interrelation between different VMware products. The documents are maintained by Dudley Smith and I also recommend a visit to his blog.

VMware Data Recovery step-by-step for newbie's

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:07:24 +0000

Firstly I have to say that this post was born due to my frustration with VMware Data Recovery. I was lucky or unlucky enough to be target by few different bugs in all releases, up to 1.0.2.

VDR promises to deliver virtual machine disk-to-disk backup and recovery solution with integrated de-duplication that was before only found in expensive enterprise class products.

(Take Care) vSphere Virtual Machine Upgrade Process

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:18:07 +0000

I decided to name this post as "Take Care" as I found myself looking for promissed VSphere features that will not be avaiable in most Corporate environments therefore you should prepare yourself, and your environment.

While I as upgrading my VM's from 3.x to VSphere I based my work on this great step-by-step article from @scot_lowe Scott Lowe's (see link bellow). The main reason for upgrading was related to the ability to run the new VMXNET3, Paravirtualized SCSI and Hot-Add/Hot-Plug. I also wanted to customize my templates to use hardware v7.

UCS (Unified Computing System) Key Concepts

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:48:01 +0000

UCS (Unified Computing System) is Cisco’s first entry into the x86 server market. This paper provides insight into both the Cisco Data Centre 3.0 strategy, and UCS, which is a key enabler to DC 3.0. It discusses products within the UCS range at a component level, such as blade and rack mount server offerings, and lastly highlights some of the larger benefits that can be gained through the pairing of x86 virtualisation and UCS technology.

VMware View Higher Levels of Availability

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:21:00 +0000

I have been working with VMware View since version 2.0, and I have to admit that VMware has made significant improvements on version 3.1.

The Connection Broker availability has always been a point of discussion so VMware released a replica server mode. It works with ADAM (Active Directory Application Mode) that is replicated to a secondary server and vice-versa. Despite that will solve the problems for most of the administrators I was imagining how I could improve the design proposed by VMware.

I am administrating a large VSphere cluster and another small VI3 cluster (only two ESXi hosts). Due to application compatibility VMView had to stay on VI3 and this cluster is now dedicated to VMView as everything else has already been migrated to VSphere. (VMware promised compatibility with VSphere until the end of year).

VirtualCenter highly available with VMware VI3

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:51:46 +0000

VirtualCenter high availability is always a point to be discussed especially if your organization does not have enough budget to acquire something like VCenter Heartbeat, in the post following the link bellow vExpert Duncan Eping describe a simple and easy way to achieve higher availability levels for vCenter with VMware VI3.

Rebuilding the Service Console

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:28:00 +0000

To a certain degree we all have faced issues with ESX hosts however nothing can be more dramatic that not being able to connect to the hosts using VI Client, either directly or via VCenter. The old and good SSH or iLO now takes place.

Top 10 Free tools to manage your Virtual Infrastructure

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:06:32 +0000

Following the idea that in this world nothing is created but everything transformed I decided to start sharing all the good posts I have collected and that make my life easier. @vladan has posted this good article about free tools that help administrators. Thanks @vladan

PCI DSS, Network Ports and your VMware Environment

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:08:31 +0000

Recently I have been involved with deployment of PCI DSS at TeleTech for the APAC region. It's good to say that TeleTech has been oficially declared PCI compliant however VMware is still on track to get their products certified. This puts a barrier for organizations with high virtualisation levels but I am not here to discuss the PCI requirements and its validity. Dwayne Melancon has already started this discussion for us Security, Compliance and Best Practices » Blog Archive » The need for a new perspective.