VMware Newsletter 5.37

From the editors virtual desk

Hi everyone, I know I said last week there would be no newsletter this week but I have decided as we have so much news to report and we are close to many events coming up in the regions I did not want to miss out on anything. I suspect the level of news will only increase over the next few weeks which makes it difficult to digest if I skip newsletters so here you go, this weeks newsletter and the 37th this year. At this pace we may be on track to a record number of newsletter this year.

I spent last week in Kuala Lumpur with my colleagues and more specifically with my TAM colleagues for a few days of training. I had an awesome time, had an opportunity to meet many of the folk that contribute to the blog and this newsletter by that fact and also pick up some very useful information for my customers that I will be sharing with them. This is one of the key aspects I think of being a TAM and being enrolled in the TAM program as a customer, the fact that your TAM is able to provide you with honest first hand information cutting through all of the hype on the latest technologies that VMware releases.

I am often asked why the newsletter often contains information on our competitors or information from other companies. My response is that I try and provide my customers with as much information as possible related to our industry, VMware, competition and related solutions that compliment their VMware environment. It is important as a TAM for us to understand as much about our customers business as we can and this means knowing not only VMware but many other related technologies. I will continue to do this in the newsletter as much as possible by choosing to include bloggers that are thoughtful in their articles regardless of their allegiance.

With that onwards to this weeks news and I look forward to speaking to you again next week.

Virtually Yours

Neil Isserow

Senior Technical Account Manager

VMware Australia

Local Events (BRISBANE)

- VMUG - October

Local Training Classes

Tinyurl.com/au7z3cr

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Install, Configure, Manage [V5.1] - 10-11 Oct

VMware View: Design Best Practices [V5.x] - 28-30 Oct

VMware Bloggers

VMware Technical Account Manager Blog: User Interface Design and the change from desktop computing (http://blogs.vmware.com/tam/?p=800)By guest blogger, Christian Wickham, Technical Account Manager, South Australia and Northern Territory, and Local Government and Councils in Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales at VMware Australia and New Zealand I have been working in IT for 22 years, and during that time there have been changes – more than a few. In the early nineties, I did a bachelor honours degree in IT – and my dissertation (thesis) was about user interface design. The main conclusion was along the lines of “users…

VMware vSphere Blog: Understanding vSphere Active Memory (https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/?p=10489)We’ve all seen “Active” memory reported within various vSphere interfaces, but how many us really know what it describes. I think you might be surprised. Let’s look at its definition to get us started: Active Memory - ”Amount of memory that is actively used, as estimated by VMkernel based on recently touched memory pages.” There are some very important details we need to breakdown here. Example: What is it used for? What does estimated mean? How do we define recently? Background : …

The Console: VMware Weekly News Recap: October 4 (http://blogs.vmware.com/vmware/?p=1319)VMware News With VMworld Barcelona rapidly approaching the VMworld Team outlined all the VMworld social channels you should be following to get involved with the VMworld conversation and stay up to date on what’s happening at the show, even if … Continue reading →

VMware Consulting Blog: Developing Defense in Depth for a Software-Defined Data Center (http://blogs.vmware.com/consulting/?p=898)By Jared Skinner, Director of Cloud Management Services Sales The software-defined data center (SDDC) is on the tip of a lot of tongues these days, but the fact is, it’s not yet an end-point solution but rather a constantly evolving strategy. For that reason, I meet many customers who are excited about its potential but still wary of the unknowns—in particular around security. As we abstract different layers of the technological stack, namely storage and network, we must continue to manage security…

VMware Virtualization Management Blog: vCenter Operations Management Tech Tips: Tip #11 – Best Practices for vSphere Capacity Planning – Part 3 of 4 (http://blogs.vmware.com/management/?p=1760)This is part 3 of the mini Tech Tip series for vSphere Capacity Planning. In part 1 of this series I covered the importance of using the right metrics and tuning the knobs to assess your capacity risk. In part 2 of this series I covered which visuals you can use in vCenter Operations to answer key questions around datacenter or cluster wide capacity usage and risk monitoring. In this 3 rd Tech Tip, I will cover some insights into right sizing your VMs.There are 2 areas that I’d like to share 1) How does…

vCenter Orchestrator Blog: How Much Javascript Do I REALLY need to know for VCO?
I find vCenter Orchestrator to have an extensive library of workflows, actions, and plugins to do what I need. However, sometimes I do have to use the customizable Scriptable Task element to customize the behavior of a vCenter Orchestrator workflow. Thankfully, this is super easy to do as the Scriptable Task is a very powerful element that allows me a full range of programmatic manipulation using the simple, open language of javascript. When I use the Scriptable Task 99% of the time what I…

VMware Technical Account Manager Blog: “It’s All About the Applications!” TAM Day 2013 Executive Keynote at VMworld US (http://blogs.vmware.com/tam/?p=1393)Exciting times are here for those of us with an absolute passion for infrastructure – continued advancements in the virtualization of x86 workloads, software-defined storage and networking, coupled with management, automation, security and compliance. But let’s not lose sight of the purpose of the infrastructure within this wave of innovation – it’s there to run applications ! Paul Strong, our CTO of Global Field for VMware, kicked off TAM Day 2013 in San Francisco with an Executive Keynote and…

VMware vSphere Blog: vSphere Replication 5.5 Performance Findings (http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/?p=10417)A few days ago I did a post on why VR is much quicker with version 5.5 than it had been in the past. Now let’s take a look at what the result of those changes is. VR Performance I replicated a single VM, 32 GB thick provisioned in size of which about 12 GB is actually allocated to disk. It took 44 minutes to copy that to the target location, including disk creation and setup time. Specifically, 11.77 GB over 44 minutes, 21 seconds. That’s about 4.56 MBps or 36.5 Mbps. Now, that’s pretty…

VMware Education & Certification Blog: Education Helps Attract and Retain Top IT Talent – Stand Out with VCA (http://blogs.vmware.com/education/?p=2519)If you are an IT manager, you’ve undoubtedly felt the pinch of the IT skills gap. You’re not alone. When CompTIA conducted its 2013 workforce study , more than half of the 1,256 business and IT executives surveyed reported being “concerned about the quality and quantity of IT talent available for hire.” Not surprisingly, many IT organizations choose to close the skills gap with retraining rather than new hires. In the high-demand mobility space, 57% of businesses said they would only retrain or…

VMware vSphere Blog: New Virtual SAN (VSAN) white paper available (http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/?p=10477)A new Virtual SAN (VSAN) white paper is now available. VSAN is a new storage solution from VMware that is fully integrated with vSphere. The paper looks at all aspects of the new VSAN architecture, including what the requirements are, the converged storage and compute aspects, the hybrid nature of using SSD & HDD, and the new storage policies, bringing to reality VMware’s vision for software defined storage. Also the considerations that must be taken into account when deploying VSAN are covered as…

VMware Accelerate: IT as a Service: Virtualization Is Only Part of the Puzzle (http://blogs.vmware.com/accelerate/?p=1326)During VMworld last month, VMware released insights from its 2013 Journey to IT as a Service Survey , based on feedback from more than 1,000 CIOs and other IT decision makers. The findings illuminate a growing revolution in how IT organizations are managed and perceived. As outlined in the study, IT organizations are progressing through three stages of transformation: IT Productivity : Capital expenditure savings through consolidation Business Productivity : Operating expenditure savings through…

VMworld Blog: VMworld 2013 Social Media for Barcelona (http://www.vmworld.com/blogs/vmworld/2013/10/03/vmworld-2013-social-media-for-barcelona)VMworld 2013 Europe is gearing up for another exciting week of amazing networking, education, announcements and experiences. Social Media has become the best source of sharing this among attendees and the rest of the world watching via social networks. For an overview of the Social Media and Community channels, offerings and activity available for the conference in Barcelona, visit the following page on vmworld.com: http://vmworld.com/community/social You can also download the VMworld 2013 Europe Social…

VMware Education & Certification Blog: New Course: VMware vCloud Networking and Security for vSphere Professionals (http://blogs.vmware.com/education/?p=2598)New course VMware vCloud Networking and Security for vSphere Professionals [V5.5] is now available in a variety of delivery modalities including Classroom, Live Online, vFlex-ILT, and private onsite training. This 3-day intensive training course focuses on installing, configuring, and managing VMware vCloud® Networking and Security™ for VMware® vSphere® professional use. It is recommended that you complete VMware vSphere, Install, Configure, Manage as a prerequisite. See course details for more…

VMwareTV: Virtual SAN Beta Webinar - Introduction to VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:Ixc2jk5iXHI)Virtual SAN Beta Webinar - Introduction to VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) Introduction to Virtual SAN Beta, hosted by VSAN PM Kiran Madnani. Webinar Agenda: · Beta Overview · Product Overview · Hardware Requirements. From: vmwaretv Views: 2 0 ratings Time: 55:41 More in Science & Technology

VMwareTV: Virtual SAN (VSAN) Beta Webinar - How to Install, Configure & Manage (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:cLfbeFoSQaI)Virtual SAN (VSAN) Beta Webinar - How to Install, Configure & Manage Gain valuable insight from our Senior Technical Marketing Architect, Cormac Hogan, on how to install, configure and manage VMware Virtual SAN. From: vmwaretv Views: 2 0 ratings Time: 59:06 More in Science & Technology

VMware for Small-Medium Business Blog: Boost Your DR Plan: Gain Simplicity/Reduce Challenges Using vCenter Infrastructure Navigator (VIN) (http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/?p=2163)Post by Kevin Lubojacky, System Engineer, VMware When establishing and maintaining disaster recovery plans, it can be challenging to ensure that all the VMs in an environment needing protection are being properly protected. In addition, there may be underlying dependencies between VMs that can easily be overlooked causing unintended behaviors in the event of an actual recovery. Reduce Challenges vCenter Infrastructure Navigator, also commonly referred to as VIN, can help solve these challenges with…

VMware Cloud Ops Blog: Implementing a Cloud Infrastructure Is About Changing Mindsets: Three Ways Cloud Operations Can Help (http://blogs.vmware.com/cloudops/?p=605)By: Pierre Moncassin A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending the first in a series of cloud operations customer roundtables in Frankfurt, Germany. The workshop was expertly run by my colleague Kevin Lees, principal consultant at VMware and author of “Organizing for the Cloud” as well as numerous VMware CloudOps blog posts . Customer participation in the round table exceeded our expectations – and was highly revealing. It quickly became obvious that process and organization challenges…

VMware vCloud Blog: VMware vCloud Service Providers at VMworld Barcelona 2013 (http://blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/?p=2904)VMworld San Francisco was an amazing event with a record breaking number of attendees and several big announcements, and we’re keeping the momentum going with VMworld Barcelona just a week away! This year’s show will be held October 14th to October 17th at Fira Barcelona Gran Via. VMware’s Service Provider ecosystem in EMEA is continuing to grow at a rapid pace, and there are many opportunities to learn more about VMware-based public and hybrid clouds offered by VMware vCloud Service Providers. If…

VMworldTV: VMworld 2013 Party: Time Lapse Video (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:yo9i2zcO-Uc)VMworld 2013 Party: Time Lapse Video Watch as we take over AT&T park for the US VMworld 2013 party. Here is a 2 minute time lapse of the celebration featuring Imagine Dragons and Train from star... From: VMworldTV Views: 68 2 ratings Time: 02:26 More in Science & Technology

VMware vSphere Blog: Does corespersocket Affect Performance? (https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/?p=10461)There is a lot of outdated information regarding the use of a vSphere feature that changes the presentation of logical processors for a virtual machine, into a specific socket and core configuration. This advanced setting is commonly known as corespersocket. It was originally intended to address licensing issues where some operating systems had limitations on the number of sockets that could be used, but did not limit core count. KB Reference: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010184 It’s often been said that…

VMware vCloud Blog: How To Use VPN to Connect Multiple vCHS Clouds (http://blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/?p=2898)By: Chris Colotti This is a repost from Chris Colotti’s blog, chriscolotti.us . As a newish member of the VMware vCloud Hybrid Service Technical Marketing Team one cool thing I get is access to various things to play with and test. Something my whole team has access to in vCHS is both a Virtual Private Cloud and a Dedicated Cloud. The unique thing about VMware vCloud Hybrid Service is that with a single user account you can access multiple cloud services you sign up for. In our case we…

VMware for Public Sector Blog: VCM Toolkit for DISA STIG vSphere 5 V1R3 is available (http://blogs.vmware.com/publicsector/?p=89)We just wanted to make sure you were aware that the DISA STIGs for ESXi 5 and vCenter 5 are now at Version 1 Release 3 (V1R3). We are also happy to let you know that the Center for Policy and Compliance (CP&C) has made available the DISA VMware vSphere 5 compliance toolkit aligned to Version 1 Release 3. You can download the package using CCW tool immediately. If you would like more information on the CP&C DISA Compliance toolkit for VCM, review this blog entry

VMware vSphere Blog: vCenter Single Sign-On “Cannot parse group information” Error (http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/?p=10440)Last week, along with the rest of you, I learned about an authentication issue with vSphere Single Sign-On version 5.5 when running both the Active Directory (AD) domain control and the vCenter Single Sign-On Server on Windows Server 2012 ( http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2060901 ). In a nutshell, when your AD domain controller and your vCenter Single Sign-On are both running on Windows Server 2012, the single sign-on is unable to authenticate AD users. You get a “ Cannot parse group information ” error: A…

VMware Education & Certification Blog: Save 50% on VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V5.5] (http://blogs.vmware.com/education/?p=2562)Save 50% on VMware vSphere BETA course: VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V5.5] Location: Live Online – attend remotely from anywhere! Time: Oct 21-22 @ 9 AM GMT See Course Description and Register Today Don’t delay as BETA courses, and Live Online in particular, fill up quickly! And sign up to be notified to receive notification as soon as future BETA Courses become available!

VMware Hands On Labs Blog: All the New Lab Manuals are in HTML and PDF! (http://blogs.vmware.com/hol/?p=559)Good morning! We are busy preparing for VMworld Barcelona, but have some exciting news that we would like to share with you. The full 2013 HOL Content Catalog of lab manuals is now available online in both HTML and PDF formats. http://docs.hol.vmware.com/HOL-2013/ We wanted to get these resources out to you all as soon as possible, so the lab listings page is a bit sparse. We are trying out a new HTML format this year that consolidates all Modules, Lessons and Steps into a single document. As a result,…

VMware Education & Certification Blog: Yes, you did see a vForum Certification Exam Offer but… (http://blogs.vmware.com/education/?p=2586)You may have briefly seen an Asia Pacific certification offer for the vForums, but now it’s gone – your eyes are not fooling you. It is something that is in progress, but not quite ready for prime time. Stay tuned!!

VMwareTV: VMware Horizon View: Using Webcams and Microphones (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:mG0ke377FOw)VMware Horizon View: Using Webcams and Microphones Make your next Skype call or have your next WebEx meeting using a Horizon View virtual desktop. Senior R&D Manager Peter Brown gives tips for using the real-... From: vmwaretv Views: 66 3 ratings Time: 03:28 More in Science & Technology

VMwareTV: Mobility and Hybrid Cloud Strategies with the Cleveland Indians Baseball Company (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:sS55sjQtPgM)Mobility and Hybrid Cloud Strategies with the Cleveland Indians Baseball Company Discover how The Cleveland Indians plan to transform IT operations by adopting mobility and hybrid cloud strategies. "My vision for mobility is, I don't want... From: vmwaretv Views: 49 0 ratings Time: 02:04 More in Science & Technology

VMwareTV: Automated SDLC Provisioning - A Big Win for both Dev and Ops at VMware (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:NF-G70qtcVw)Automated SDLC Provisioning - A Big Win for both Dev and Ops at VMware See how VMware itself automated its Dev & Test provisioning environment from 4 weeks to 36 hours, the challenges, the process, the benefits. From: vmwaretv Views: 117 0 ratings Time: 10:01 More in Science & Technology

VMware Support Insider: Installing VMware vSphere 5.5 on a Windows platform using the Simple Install method (http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/?p=5832)We have another vSphere 5.5 video for you today which demonstrates how to install vSphere 5.5 on a Windows based platform using the Simple Install method . vSphere 5.5 provides two methods to install vCenter Server: Simple Install – Installs all of the vSphere 5.5 components on a single system Custom Component Install – Installs all vSphere components separately by allowing you to choose the location of each service in your environment For additional information see VMware Knowledge Base article:…

VMware Education & Certification Blog: IT Needs 10 Hours a Week ‘Upskilling’ to Stay Relevant (http://blogs.vmware.com/education/?p=2580)What is the half-life of your IT knowledge? In 1962, economist Fritz Machlup coined the phrase “knowledge half-life” to describe the time it takes for half the knowledge in a particular domain to be superseded. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that the half-life of IT knowledge decreases every year. According to a recent article in the IEEE Spectrum , the half-life of an IT professional’s career is now about 10 to 12 years—or less. And as IT professionals know, staying relevant for…

VMware Virtualization Management Blog: Cloud Automation ROI – Cleaning up after Transient Applications (http://blogs.vmware.com/management/?p=1746)Not all applications have life spans measured in years. Most companies have applications that run anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. The challenge is that the applications and the resources they consume live on long after the task is complete. Examples of these types of applications include: modeling, simulation, month/quarter end processing, development, testing, etc. Think about the applications at your company that have the need for transient compute resources. At most companies the…

VMware for Small-Medium Business Blog: Take 3 Minutes to Learn About vCloud Hybrid Service (http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/?p=2147)Post by Theresa Villatore-Silva, Senior Solutions Marketing Manager, VMware You’ve probably heard about VMware’s recently announced infrastructure-as-a-service offering called vCloud Hybrid Service . One of the main benefits of this cloud service for existing VMware customers is the fact that vCloud Hybrid Service is built on vSphere – the same platform you know and trust for your onsite IT infrastructure. This common platform between onsite and offsite environments means it’s easy to migrate…

VMware Support Insider: Three new videos – vSphere 5.5 HA, Roles & Permissions (http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/?p=5826)vSphere HA Admission Control Learn about vSphere HA Admission Control and the policies that you can choose from. Roles, Privileges and Permissions in the vSphere Web Client Senior Staff Engineer Peter Shepherd discusses privileges, roles, and permissions, and demonstrates how to create a virtual machine administrator role in the vSphere Web Client vSphere HA Slot Size and Admission Control Learn what a slot is, how it is calculated, and how it affects your vSphere HA Admission Control.

VMware Education & Certification Blog: Question of the Week: vSphere Storage Appliance (http://blogs.vmware.com/education/?p=2546)This week’s question of the week comes from instructional video Introducing the vSphere Storage Appliance. How many nodes can a VMware vSphere Storage Appliance contain? a. at most 1-node b. 2-node clusters c. 3-node clusters d. 2- and 3-node clusters Not sure of the answer? Watch the instructional video Introducing the vSphere Storage Appliance. Answer: d. 2- and 3- nodes clusters

VMware Education & Certification Blog: Asia Pacific Certification Offers Abound (http://blogs.vmware.com/education/?p=2566)Lot of offers available. Choose your country: ASEAN (includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) Secure your VCP5-DCV Certification pack today and receive add-ons worth over US$600 plus the first 50 registrants receive an IaaS exam voucher! See promotion details. Australia & New Zealand Secure your VCP Certification pack today and receive add-ons work up to US$1000. See promotion details for VCP5-DCV Certification pack or VCP-Coud Certification pack China Save on…

VMware vCloud Blog: vCloud Hybrid Service Demos at VMworld (http://blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/?p=2889)News and announcements were plentiful during VMworld 2013, but one announcement in particular had VMware fans excited – the general availability of the vCloud Hybrid Service to all customers in the United States! In case you missed it at VMworld, the VMware Booth in the Solutions Exchange gave attendees the opportunity to familiarize themselves with VMware’s new hybrid solution, through demos and one-on-one time with vCloud Hybrid Service experts. While at VMworld, the vCloud Team was able to spend…

VMware vSphere Blog: vSphere Flash Read Cache – What’s New White Paper (http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/?p=10383)A new vSphere Flash Read Cache (vFRC) white paper is now available. In this white paper, is based on one of pillars of the software-defined datacenter of VMware® – storage. As VMware’s plans for SDDC focuses on a set of VMware initiatives around local storage, shared storage and storage/data services. In essence, we want to make vSphere a platform for storage services. This white paper examines in detail vSphere Flash Read Cache, a solution that provides persistent Flash-based storage tier services…

VMware Cloud Ops Blog: VMworld Recap: Hear From the CloudOps Experts, Part 2 (http://blogs.vmware.com/cloudops/?p=592)As we discussed in Part 1 of our VMworld 2013 recap, cloud technology is empowering organizations to re-think IT – an opportunity underlined in our September #CloudOpsChat , which explored how automation lets IT operations service clients efficiently while focusing on meeting business objectives. In the second and concluding post in this series, we further explore those possibilities – Hear from CloudOps experts Ed Newman, Kevin Lees with Khalid Hakim, Valentin Hamburger with Bjoern Brundert, Jeff Ton,…

VMwareTV: Ed Newman: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:5f_3DebLkq4)Ed Newman: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) The VMware CloudOps team caught up with EMC Global Service's Managing Director of IT Transformation Ed Newman at VMworld to discuss his thoughts on cloud ope... From: vmwaretv Views: 40 0 ratings Time: 03:24 More in Science & Technology

VMwareTV: Jeff Ton: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:MLVMtAxzV_s)Jeff Ton: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) The VMware CloudOps team caught up with Goodwill Industry of Indiana's SVP of Corporate Connectivity and CIO Jeff Ton at VMworld to discuss his thoughts on c... From: vmwaretv Views: 15 0 ratings Time: 01:43 More in Science & Technology

VMwareTV: Khalid Hakim and Kevin Lees: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:1mmPalUSPpk)Khalid Hakim and Kevin Lees: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) The VMware CloudOps team caught up with VMware's Principal Architect of Cloud Operations Kevin Lees and Cloud Operations Architect Khalid Hakim at VMworld to... From: vmwaretv Views: 41 1 ratings Time: 02:27 More in Science & Technology

VMwareTV: Paul Chapman: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:t7gyx0BDDA8)Paul Chapman: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) The VMware CloudOps team caught up with VMware's Vice President of Global Infrastructure and Cloud Operations Paul Chapman to discuss his thoughts on cloud o... From: vmwaretv Views: 16 0 ratings Time: 02:00 More in Science & Technology

VMwareTV: Valentin Hamburger and Bjoern Brundert: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) (tag:youtube.com,2008:video:v6lDUuLq5gA)Valentin Hamburger and Bjoern Brundert: Hear from the CloudOps Experts (VMworld 2013) The VMware CloudOps team caught up with VMware's Sr. Technical Account Manager Valentin Hamburger and Technical Account Manager Bjoern Brundert at VMworld to... From: vmwaretv Views: 25 1 ratings Time: 03:37 More in Science & Technology

VMware Support Insider: Three new vSphere 5.5 Web Client videos (http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/?p=5821)Flow-Based Marking for QoS Traffic Senior Staff Engineer Peter Shepherd explains flow-based marking in vSphere Distributed Switch and walks you through configuring Quality of Service (QoS) tagging in a simple Voice-over-IP (VoIP) environment by using the vSphere Web Client. Improve Networking Performance by using SR-IOV Senior Staff Engineer Peter Shepherd discusses the advantages of using the Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) technology in vSphere 5.5 or later for reducing latency and improving…

VMware Support Insider: Installing VMware ESXi 5.5 using the Interactive Installer (http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/?p=5816)Continuing on with vSphere 5.5, this video discusses and demonstrates how to install VMware ESXi 5.5 using the Interactive Installer . Interactive installations are recommended for small deployments of fewer than five hosts. You can boot the installer from a CD or DVD, from a bootable USB device, or by PXE booting the installer from a location on the network, then follow the prompts in the installation wizard to install ESXi to disk. As you will see from the video, the installation procedure for ESXi 5.5…

External Bloggers

HA Futures: Pro-active response (http://www.yellow-bricks.com/?p=13530)We all know (at least I hope so) what HA is responsible for within a vSphere Cluster. Although it is great that vSphere HA responds to a failure of a host / VM / application and even in some cases your storage device; wouldn’t it be nice if vSphere HA could pro-actively respond to conditions […] " HA Futures: Pro-active response " originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com . Follow me on twitter - @DuncanYB.

Virtual SAN news flash pt 1 (http://www.yellow-bricks.com/?p=13750)I had a couple of things I wanted to write about with regards to Virtual SAN which I felt weren’t beefy enough to dedicate a full article to so I figured I would combine a couple of news worthy items and create a Virtual SAN news flash article / series. I was playing with Virtual […] " Virtual SAN news flash pt 1 " originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com . Follow me on twitter - @DuncanYB.

Virtual SAN and Data Locality/Gravity (http://www.yellow-bricks.com/?p=13739)I was reading this article by Michael Webster about the benefit of Jumbo Frames. Michael was testing what the impact was from both an IOps and latency perspective when you run Jumbo Frames vs non-Jumbo Frames. Michael saw a clear benefit: Higher IOps Lower latency Lower CPU utilization I would highly recommend reading Michael’s full […] " Virtual SAN and Data Locality/Gravity " originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com . Follow me on twitter - @DuncanYB.

Virtual SAN webinars, make sure to attend! (http://www.yellow-bricks.com/?p=13737)Interested in Virtual SAN? VMware is organizing various webinars about Virtual SAN in the upcoming weeks. Last week there was an introduction on VSAN, you can watch the recording here. The next one is by no one less than Cormac Hogan. Cormac will talk about how to install and configure Virtual SAN and will discuss […] " Virtual SAN webinars, make sure to attend! " originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com . Follow me on twitter - @DuncanYB.

New Technical White Paper - What’s New in VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) (http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2492-guid.html)

How to become a VMware Certified Associate for free (http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2471-guid.html)

Get a free copy of the vSphere Design Pocketbook (http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2488-guid.html)

Cool App - Manage vSphere from you phone with InfraDog (http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2491-guid.html)

Cool Tool - vGuestExplorer (http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2490-guid.html)

New SolarWinds Virtualization Manager 6.0 integrated management (http://vsphere-land.com/?p=4246)I recently wrote about the challenges around management in heterogeneous virtual environments and how tools from vendors like SolarWinds can help overcome those challenges. One of the keys to having a good management product is that it’s not creating more management silos and can cover the full spectrum of your virtual environment. SolarWinds has a [...]

Using Puppet for Ubuntu Cloud Archive Support (http://blog.scottlowe.org/?p=3303)Want to use packages from the Ubuntu Cloud Archive, like OpenStack packages? Here's how to use Puppet to automatically add the Ubuntu Cloud Archive to your systems. This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org . Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies. Using Puppet for Ubuntu Cloud Archive Support

Site update – Build numbers (http://www.vmguru.nl/wordpress/?p=11628)Along with the new look of the website it was also time to update the build number database. In the last few weeks we have been working on updating the database, resulting in a increase with 387 entries making a total of 592 build numbers. But we didn’t stop there. On popular demand we changed the way the build numbers are presented, since there are devices that don’t support Flash. Therefore we abandoned Flash and created the site with HTML5. Now that we are using HTML5 every device should be able to…

vRockstar pre-VMworld Party! (http://www.vmguru.nl/wordpress/?p=11726)Source: vclouds.nl We think that you are all VMworld Rockstars! So we decided to bring the vRockstar party back to VMworld Europe for a second year running! Last year was a blast and this year it’s going to be even better! Join Patrick Redknap, Marco Broeken, Robert Payne & Hans De Leenheer to kick off VMworld in style at the Hard Rock Cafe in Barcelona’s central square Plaça de Catalunya with drinks and hard rock! We have some great sponsors this year! Many thanks to PHD Virtual, Cisco, SanDisk,…

Acronis vmProtect (http://www.vmguru.nl/wordpress/?p=11376)Recently we where approached by Acronis if we would be interested in having a look at their backup and replication product called vmProtect. vmProtect is suitable for environments that have up to 100 virtual clients in a vSphere virtual infrastructure. The installation and reviewing is based on vmProtect version 8, in the mean time however Acronis released version 9. In this article we will have a look at some of the features and the GUI for vmProtect version 8 and I will point out some new features for…

VMware Horizon View: Using Webcams and Microphones (http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=5475)With release of Horizon View 5.2, VMware announced support for Real-Time Audio-View as part of the Feature Pack 2 (find the release notes here). Peter Brown and Tarique Chowdhury provided some quick tips, guidance and configuration tips in their article Real-Time Audio-Video (RTAV) for Horizon View. I also wrote an article entitled Understanding Horizon View Real-Time Audio-Video (RTAV) a … Continue reading »

Update to VDI Calculator v4.2 (http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=5473)Hi there, I have just released a new version of the VDI Calculator – 4.2. This is a small release that fix some known little bugs and prepare the calculator for future updates. Your current installed calculator should automatically ask you to update the application, but you can also just go and launch it … Continue reading »

What’s New and What’s Next for Horizon View (http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=5470)During VMworld 2013, Ravi Kumar and I presented a session entitled “What’s New and What’s Next for Horizon View”. In this session we discussed few aspects about what users and administrators should expect from Horizon View in the future. In this session I took brief time to diagram and explain each of Horizon View components … Continue reading »

How to share VMware Workstation VMs (http://www.vladan.fr/?p=32366)VMware Workstation 10 allows sharing VMs on a network. It’s possible to allow (or not) users to access this shared VM or give them different set of privileges too. Useful if you deal with users which are for example students or and you don’t want them to break/delete the VM. Users of VMware Workstation might […] You might also like: VMware Workstation 10 and VMware Fusion 6 Released! Possible conflict with IIS by default when sharing VMs under VMware Workstation 8.0.1 Released Read the full post How…

vSphere HA Slot Size and Admission Control Video (http://www.vladan.fr/?p=32323)VMware has recently published 3 new videos. I wanted to point to the third one which is very good for understanding the very interesting topic about slot size and admission control. If you ever wondered what does exactly that HA cluster policy called “Host failures the cluster tolerates” or how to understand slot size calculations, […] You might also like: VMware HA Slot sizes Official VMware VSAN Videos – VSAN config,… Free VMworld 2013 Session – The Next Phase in the… Read the full post…

vFlash Read Cache Performance PDF (vFRC) – vSphere 5.5 (http://www.vladan.fr/?p=32320)New whitepaper which has been released by VMware brings details about new feature present in vSphere 5.5 – vFlash Read Cache (VFRC). I already reported on the details about VFRC in my article - VMware vSphere 5.5 vFlash Read Cache. The paper brings more details about vFlash Read Cache Performance through much deeper testing with different workload […] You might also like: VMware vFlash Read Cache (vFRC) configuration steps vSphere 5.5 demos – New Interactive Product… VMware vSphere 5.5 vFlash Read…

How to upgrade VDP – from VDP 5 to VDP 5.5.1 (http://www.vladan.fr/?p=32328)After vSphere 5.5 release, users of VDP might look for How to upgrade VDP? The latest update of vSphere Data Protection (VDP 5.5.1) brought new features and enhancements that I have reported on in my article here - VMware VDP 5.5 and VDP Advanced – With a DR for VDP. You might already knew that VDP uses […] You might also like: VMware VDP 5.5 and VDP Advanced – With a DR for VDP! VMware Data Recovery 2.0 – the upgrade process from… VMware VDP logs – locate and troubleshoot Read the full post…

How-to backup and restore VCSA 5.5 internal database (http://www.vladan.fr/?p=32309)vCenter server appliance (Linux) version 5.5 increased the limits for its internal vPostgress DB now supporting up to 100 hosts and 3000 VMs. Soft limit, but enabling the usage and deployment scenarios at the client’s sites. Clients which are OK with the fact that their vCenter is not on Windows. There are some questions which […] You might also like: vCenter Server Appliance Upgrade Process Video VMware vCenter Orchestrator Overview Configuration vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 (vCSA) – Installation and…

Realtek 8169 NIC in ESXi 5.5 not detected by default – install a VIB (http://www.vladan.fr/?p=32292)I was upgrading my Whiteboxes this week end. I had them populated with some Intel NICs (no problem with those) and some Realtek NICs. The unsupported Realtek NIC was not recognized after clean install, but could be installed with community supported drivers. Read on if you have the same problem and your Realtek 8169 NIC […] You might also like: Realtek onboard NIC support in vSphere 5 How to install VIB on VMware ESXi ESXi Free – how to upgrade to ESXi 5.1 Read the full post Realtek 8169 NIC in ESXi 5.5…

Zentyal Linux 3.2 released (http://www.vladan.fr/?p=32283)I’ve reported about Zentyal Linux few months back and showed two types of installs (prepackaged and on the top of Ubuntu server). I found that this Linux distro is interesting enough for small, or very small businesses. Its Ubuntu Server based distribution which uses an GUI front-end for easy administration. This is interesting for people […] You might also like: How to Install Zentyal in Ubuntu Server VMware Tools Download From Online Repository How-to install vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) and…

VSI 6.0 vSphere Web Client (http://www.2vcps.com/?p=1436)I didn’t get a chance to post this to the blog earlier this week. I wanted to share a demo I worked on this week showing how to install the new Web Client based Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI). We all know that the windows only client is in its last days (lived about a year […] Related posts: View Open Client 4.5 Beta 1.1 Now Out View Client on iPad with Bluetooth Keyboard Book Review: Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator

VMware vCenter Appliance 5.5 – Tour (http://www.2vcps.com/?p=1431)So you have ESXi up and running. What is next? Get the vCenter appliance running. I downloaded the OVA and imported in just a few minutes. After getting the appliance all booted go the https://<your-ip>:5480 Setup vCenter Options I selected custom so I could go through all the options. Oracle is also an option. Fill […] Related posts: Book Review: Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator Installing VMware vSphere 5.5 – Quick Tour New Releases for VMware vCenter

Interesting Tidbit in #PowerCLI Release Notes (tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-8257884874958424813)With last week's release - there was also an updated version on PowerCLI that was released as well. VMware vSphere PowerCLI 5.5 Release 1 Release Notes I noticed something quite strange (personally I have not yet hit this bug - but I am sure it... This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more!..

DevopsDays TLV 2013 (tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-8329210647636621836)I will not be live blogging the sessions - but will embed the Twitter conversation below - and will add some thoughts about the sessions later on. Here is the LiveStream of the event. Tweets about "#devopsdays TLV" !function(d,s,id){var... This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more!..

Cluster Performance & Replication Capacity Planning Flings (tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-2790611935196576515)VMware has released two new Flings. vSphere Replication Capacity Planning Appliance The vSphere Replication Capacity Planning Appliance allows administrators to model the network impact of a virtual machine replication without producing actual... This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more!..

VMware KB Digest – New KB articles published for week ending 9/28/13 (http://vmwaretips.com/wp/?p=2197)In our effort to provide our viewers with up to the minute information on VMware related news and topics, we’re posting the following list of new KB Entries for this week, direct from VMware Support. Silver Peak Software WAN Optimization solution in VMware software defined data center (2060271) Date Published: 9/26/2013 VMware ESX ESX/ESXi host [...]

2013-oct-03 ProfessionalVMware #vBrownBag LATAM @ercruzv privilegios y roles en vCenter (http://professionalvmware.com/?p=3927)The following content is in Spanish, the language in which the webinar is presented. El pasado 10 de octubre en ProfessionalVMware #vBrownBag LATAM se presentó el tema Privilegios y roles en VMware vCenter por Randall Cruz Vega @ercruzv .

KB Articles

Silver Peak Software WAN Optimization solution in VMware software defined data center (2060271)
Date Published: 9/26/2013

VMware ESX
ESX/ESXi host locks a series of on-disk resource metadata structures delaying operations from other hosts (2052862)
Date Published: 9/26/2013
When remediating a cluster Distributed Resource Scheduler no longer migrates virtual machines to remediated ESXi/ESX hosts (2053401)
Date Published: 9/26/2013