Blog Posts

"For those familiar with the ITIL framework you will of course know that by its very nature it tries to remain platform agnostic. But based on our experience working with ITIL and VMware, a number of key areas have been identified as being a focus point where the specifics of using VMware will have an effect.

To provide some guidance to people not familiar with the ITIL v3 Capacity Management terminology I will provide a brief overview of each section prior to discussing where the key areas of interest are in relation to VMware."

You can read the full article here.

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

"The Veeam Monitor Free Edition is an easy-to-use VMware monitoring solution designed to meet the day-to-day needs of VMware administrators who need real-time performance monitoring and alerting. Built from the ground up specifically for the virtual world, Veeam Monitor provides a bird’s-eye view of key performance metrics across your virtual ESXi infrastructure.

With Veeam Monitor, you can view real-time resource usage data for any virtual infrastructure object or collection of objects, as well as known infrastructure events, all on a single screen. This allows you to finally see your virtual infrastructure as a unified entity, not just a collection of isolated hosts and guests."

You can download your free copy here.

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

Trilead VM Explorer is a management tool that eases management, backup and disaster recovery tasks in your VMware ESX Server environment. You get maximum flexibility: backups can be stored to ESX, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD based storage platforms or directly to a SAN.

Features:

• Multi-Server Management: The graphical user interface of VM Explorer allows to connect to multiple ESX, Linux and FreeBSD servers at the same time in the same interface.


• Server to Server fast copy: Allows you to copy files directly (drag&drop) between ESX, Linux and FreeBSD servers at full speed: throughput is only limited by the available network/storage system bandwidth.


• ESX to ESX/Windows/Linux/FreeBSD/SAN Backup & Restore: Our unique ESX to any backup feature allows to backup virtual machines to other ESX Servers, Linux or FreeBSD servers. Of course, virtual machines can also be stored to a SAN (ISCSI or NFS) directly attached to an ESX. Furthermore, backups can also be saved on the Windows machine where the VM Explorer is running.


• Support for ESX 3i: VMX version 1.5 includes beta support for the next generation of ESX servers.


• File Browser: Browse instantly your ESX/Linux/FreeBSD servers' file system and copy files from one to the other just by drag & drop. Supports also up- and download to the management station.


• Integrated SSH Client: The integrated SSH Terminal Client allows you to configure all your Unix/Linux based Servers trough SSH, all within one software.


• Job Scheduler: The integrated job scheduler allows you to perform unattended, periodic backups of your virtual infrastructure.


• Integrated ESX Snapshot Manager: Create and remove snapshots directly from within VMX.


• Dynamic Compression: To make use of slow network links (e.g., for wide-area replication) or to save space on the target system, backups can be dynamically compressed.

• Screenshots


• Editions


• Download

"Zenoss 2.3 includes improvements in Windows and Java application monitoring as well as native VMware management for Zenoss Enterprise Edition. We are also taking the opportunity to highlight over 30 new ZenPacks developed by the Zenoss community for expert monitoring of Asterisk PBX, Brocade Switches, Cisco Security Appliance, and many more."

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

"VMware Update Manager (VUM) is a component of VMware Infrastructure that automates patches and upgrades of ESX hosts as well as Windows and Linux virtual machines. A new white paper, VMware Update Manager Performance and Best Practices, is now available.

In this paper we discuss VUM 1.0 host deployment, latency, resource consumption, guest OS tuning, high-latency networks, and the impact of on-access virus scanning. We also provide performance tips to help customers tune the system for better performance."

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

Ok, here it is, the free Hypervisor from Microsoft that will try to compete with VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008.

The download is almost 1 GB in size so if you feel like giving it a try this is the link:

• Microsoft Hyper-V Server Download

A couple of things to take into account from the FAQ page:

Q: Is it possible to “upgrade” a Microsoft Hyper-V Server to Windows Server 2008?

A: No. Microsoft Hyper-V Server and Windows Server 2008 are different products. To migrate from a Microsoft Hyper-V Server environment to a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environment, export the virtual machines from Hyper-V Server, install Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, enable the Hyper-V role and import the virtual machines.

Q: Does Microsoft Hyper-V Server include high availability (failover clustering) capabilities for unplanned downtime?

A: No. If high availability is a customer requirement, then we recommend using Windows Server 2008 Enterprise or Datacenter Editions which include integrated failover clustering support.

Q: Can you use PowerShell locally with Microsoft Hyper-V Server?

A: No. PowerShell is not included with Microsoft Hyper-V Server. However, if you use System Center Virtual Machine Manager you can use PowerShell remotely to manage a Microsoft Hyper-V Server.

Q: Does Microsoft Hyper-V Server use a parent partition like Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role enabled?

A: Yes. Microsoft Hyper-V Server shares some things in common with Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role enabled including a common kernel and drivers.

When to use Hyper-V Server 2008?

• Test and Development


• Basic Server Consolidation


• Branch Office Consolidation


• Hosted Desktop Virtualization (VDI)

Also, you can access the Technical Resources page here.

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

This problem applies to all ESX 3.5 U2 hosts but should not affect you running VMs. Suggested Workarounds:

For the Virtual Machines:

• Set DRS to manual


• Do not VMotion


• Do not power off or suspend your VMs


• If you have important VMs you need to turn on again: a. Create a quarantine host b. Set time on this host back c. Cold migrate the VM to the quarantine host d. Verify that your VM does not synchronize its time with that ESX host: Power the VM on, log into it and set the time manually


• You could also think about temporarily disconnecting the VM to power on from the Virtual Switch - this way you are certain that the VM will not be able to communicate with a DC while it’s out of time-synch

Note: Please take into account that if you change the time on the affected ESX host and VMware tools is configure to synchronize the guest with it, you may adversely affect your running services.

For the ESX Host:

• Log in as root on the target host


• Issue the following commands:
  
  a. service ntpd stop
  
  b. date -s 08/01/2008

Note: This can also be done using the VI Client (Configuration, Software, Time Configuration, Properties).

Further reading and sources for this article:

• VMware Knowledge Base


• VMware Communities


• ICT_Freak


• Leo's Ramblings

Posted by Gabriel Maciel