.Top 10 List Index
May 12th, 2008
Archive
Archive for the ‘Top 10 List’ Category
Top 10 Blogs that VMware administrators must read
November 6th, 2008
- Yellow Bricks - Duncan Epping’s relatively new blog on VMware topics is another great source for technical tips and information. Duncan recently accepted a job working for VMware and we look forward to more great posts from him.
- Scott Lowe’s blog - Scott Lowe blogs on many technical areas that administrators will find extremely useful. Scott has a wealth of knowledge and experience and his posts are always worth reading.
- Mike D’s blog - A relative newcomer to the VMware blog-o-sphere (well less then a year anyway) Mike DiPetrillo is a systems engineer that works for VMware and has been posting some fabulous stuff lately. Mike’s knowledge and experience is evident in his very detailed posts that he writes and he is not afraid to tackle any sensitive issues and set the record straight.
- NTPro - Eric Sloof is a VCI located in the Netherlands that has been blogging on Vmware for many years. His posts are always informative and are another great source for tips and news on VMware related topics.
- Tech Target’s SearchServerVirtualization - One of Tech Target’s blogs that encompasses all virtualization platforms. In addition to Tech Target’s staff there are several regular contributors including: Rick Vanover, Eric Siebert and Andrew Kutz.
- Tech Target’s Virtualization Pro - Another Tech Target blog that focuses solely on VMware related topics. In addition to Tech Target’s staff there are several regular contributors including: Rick Vanover, Eric Siebert and Andrew Kutz.
- VM Etc - Richard Brambley’s blog has many good tips and news items for all virtualization products but with more focus on VMware. Many of his posts also detail his experiences working with VMware and are quite helpful.
- RTFM Education -Mike Laverick’s RTFM Education blog is a great source for learning more about VMware. His free guides that he writes on a variety of material are a great source for learning more about VMware and going beyond the manual.
- Rational Survivability - You gotta love the Hoff, Christofer Hoff’s blog focuses on virtualization security. Hoff doesn’t pull any punches and is not afraid to say what’s on his mind when tackling sensitive security topics. His often witty and shrewd blog posts reflect his intimate knowledge and experience with security related topics.
- Virtual Geek - Chad Sakac who is a systems engineer that works for EMC, VMware’s parent company knows alot about storage as evidenced by his great posts. Chad’s blog has some very detailed and informative posts and is a must read for all virtual geeks out there.
Top 10 Free Tools that must be in every VMware Administrators toolkit
June 27th, 2008
- Putty and SSH Plug-in - SSH clients for remotely connecting to the ESX service console. Putty runs as a standalone application and the SSH Plug-in is a VI client plug-in that integrates an SSH console directly into the client.
- WinSCP and Veeam FastSCP - SCP clients for browsing ESX server file systems and transferring files to/from ESX hosts.
- VI3 SnapHunter and SnapAlert - Utilities that can report all running snapshots on ESX hosts including name, size and date. Can also automatically email reports and optionally commit snapshots.
- VI Scripted Backup Utility - A backup utility that is run from the Service Console that provides VMDK level backups of any VM on storage accessible by the host. The script can be targeted at any ESX server or VC server, and if pointed at a VC server is DRS aware.
- MCS StorageView - A utility that displays all the logical partitions, operating system, capacity, free space and percent free of all virtual machines on ESX 3.x or Virtual Center 2.x. It can also display how many gigabytes you can save by decreasing the logical partition to a size the VM really needs.
- Storage VMotion Plug-in - A VI client plug-in that extends the client’s functionality by providing an integrated, graphical tool that can be used to invoke storage VMotion (SVMotion) operations.
- VMotion Info - A program that will collect Vendor, Model, CPU Types and the CPU feature bits from all hosts to check for vMotion compatibility.
- VMCdConnected - Scans all Virtual Machines and shows if they have a CD connected to it. After scanning the VM’s you can disconnect all the CD’s with a click of a button.
- VMware Converter - Performs hot and cold conversions of physical and virtual servers to virtual machines. Also converts image formats.
- Tripwire ConfigCheck - Quickly assesses the security of VMware ESX 3.5 hypervisor configurations compared to the VI3 Security Hardening guidelines. Ensures that ESX environments are properly configured and provides the necessary steps towards full remediation when they are not.
Top 10 News and Information websites that VMware administrators must visit
July 14th, 2008
- Virtualization.info - This popular website covers the entire virtualization industry and is a great source for all the latest news. Alessandro often reports major news scoops before anyone else and is the place to go to find out all the news, speculation and rumors in the industry.
- Tech Target’s SearchVMware.com - Tech Target’s website that was launched to focus solely on VMware related topics. This website has many great feature articles, tips, white papers, news, webcasts and other information.
- Tech Target’s SearchServerVirtualization.com - Another Tech Target website that covers all virtualization products. This website has many great feature articles, tips, white papers, news, webcasts and other information.
- Virtualization Sys-con - A great source for news, blogs, interviews, webcasts and white papers for the entire virtualization industry.
- Virtual Strategy Magazine - This online magazine has many great feature articles, podcasts, columns, news and many other resources that provide some great information on all virtualization products.
- Dabcc - Another great source for virtualization news, articles, columns, podcasts and blogs. This website is updated quite frequently each day with many new articles and posts.
- Virtualization.com - This website is a good resource for all the latest news in the virtualization industry. It also features many good interviews and articles on virtualization.
- Virtualization Admin - A new website that was recently launched that is geared towards virtualization administrators. This website features many great tips, articles and blog posts from many contributor’s including David Davis and has a lot of great technical information.
- Virtualization Review - This website has a lot of great content on virtualization including columns, tips, news, feature articles and blogs from Keith Ward and Tom Valovic.
- VM Blog - David Marshall’s website that covers all the latest virtualization news in the industry. Another website that is updated quite frequently each day with many new items.
Top 10 PowerShell scripts that VMware administrators must use
January 11th, 2009
- Quick Migration - A script from Mike DiPetrillo that duplicates the Quick Migration of HyperV in a VMware environment by suspending a running VM and moving it to another ESX host server.
- Report into MS Word - A script from Alan Renouf that provides a report in Microsoft Word of the virtual machines in your environment with graphs and pie charts.
- Dynamic Resource Pool Calculator - A script from Eric Sloof that recalculates all of your resource pools and can automatically increase memory and CPU reservations. It can be run interactively using a GUI or through a command line with arguments.
- VMware Infrastructure Power Documenter - A script from Antonio Zamora that produces many different detailed reports about your VMware environment in Open XML format.
- ESX Automated Configuration Midwife - A script from Lance Berc that adds a new ESX host to VirtualCenter and configures networking, storage, VMotion and a few other things.
- VMware Health Check script - A script that produces a report of your VMware environment including information on snapshots, datastores, VMware tools versions, mapped CD-ROM drives and more.
- Track Datastore Free Space - A script from Hugo Peeters that produce reports that track free space on your datastores so you can see how it changes over time.
- List Disk RDMs - A script that lists any Raw Device Mappings (RDMs) that exist in your environment which is helpful as RDM’s are not listed in the datastore list of ESX servers.
- Find snapshots and send email to user/users with - A script from Chris Uys that emails a report of snapshots that are running in your VMware environment.
- Setting Video Hardware Acceleration Level - A script from Hugo Peeters that sets the video hardware acceleration level inside Windows VMs to Full so they perform properly in a VMware environment.
Top 10 things you must read about ESXi
October 12th, 2008
- Installing and Configuring ESXi (Pt. 1) - A basic guide to installing and configuring the installable version of ESXi.
- Two ways to patch ESXi installable (Pt. 2) - A basic guide on using two different methods for patching ESXi.
- VMware ESX Server 3i - A presentation from VMware on ESXi, this executive summary provides an overview of ESXi and its features and benefits.
- The Architecture of VMware ESXi - A white paper from VMware that provides technical detail on the archictecture and management model of ESXi.
- Managing VMware ESXi - A white paper from VMware that provides technical detail on managing ESXi including interactive and scripted management, patching, backup and using 3rd party management applications.
- Getting Started with ESX Server 3i Installable - The official documentation from VMware on installing and configuring ESXi.
- Webcast: VMware ESXi: The Easiest Way to Get Started with Virtualization - A webcast from VMware that covers the key capabilities of ESXi, steps needed for a typical deployment and the tools used for building and managing virtual machines.
- How does VMware ESXi Server compare to ESX Server? and VMware KB Article - Some comparisons of the key technical differences between ESX and ESXi.
- Boot ESXi from USB Storage - A tutorial on how to create a bootable USB flash drive that can be used to boot ESXi from.
- Get full control over your ESXi server - Describes methods for connecting to the command line interface that exists in ESXi that can be useful for support and troubleshooting purposes.
Top 10 things you must read about Memory in VI3
July 11th, 2008
- The Role of Memory in ESX Server 3 - A white paper from VMware that explains some of the unique memory concepts that are used in VI3 including memory balloons, overcommitment, sharing and swapping.
- Memory Provisioning Recommendations for VI3 - A white paper from Kingston that defines the planning process for determining the appropriate amount of memory for a VI3 deployment, dispels some common misconceptions, and describes the consequences of sub-optimal sizing.
- Understanding Host and Guest memory usage - A VMworld 2007 presentation from VMware that helps clear up some of the mysteries on host and guest memory usage in VI3.
- Server Memory Power Consumption & Capacity Planning - A VMworld 2007 presentation from Kingston on memory technologies and how to select memory with regard to power consumption and performance.
- RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff - A technical article that explains some aspects of the Virtual Memory implementation in Windows 2000, XP, 2003 Server etc. It helps explain the relationship between RAM (Random Access Memory), Address Spaces, Virtual Memory and pagefile in Windows systems.
- Memory resource management in VMware ESX Server - A very detailed technical paper by a VMware engineer that explains memory management in ESX server and also how the advanced memory features that are used by ESX work.
- Memory Shares/Limits/Reservations - A VMTN forums thread that discusses various scenarios on using memory shares, limits and reservations.
- Understanding memory usage in Windows 2000 - A Microsoft Technet article that explains how Windows 2000 uses memory and how to track memory usage to see how much you really need.
- Understanding the Impact of RAM on Overall System Performance - A article that talks about why memory plays such a huge role in a computer’s overall performance.
- Memory Optimization - A VMTN forums thread that covers some advanced memory topics with participation from one of the VMware engineers.
Top 10 things you must read about Patching and Monitoring ESX & ESXi hosts
February 11th, 2009
- Best Practices for Patching VMware ESX/ESXi - This best practices document from VMware gives a brief explanation of patching and the different mechanisms for applying patches for the VMware ESX 3.5 product line. It focuses on the ESX patching model, patch packaging, and deliverables- key topics you need to understand to maintain your ESX systems.
- Performance Monitoring and Capacity Planning - A VMworld 2006 presentation that covers the different aspects of performance monitoring in detail and what statistics that you should be aware of.
- Update Manager Administration Guide - Documentation from VMware that provides information on how to configure Update Manager including how to install the product and configure it for use in your environment.
- Patch Management for ESX Server 3.5 -Documentation from VMware that provides background information on processing patches for ESX Server 3.0.3 and ESX Server 3.5 hosts and describes how to use the esxupdate utility to apply software updates and to track software installed on ESX Server 3.0.3 and ESX Server 3.5 hosts.
- Interpreting esxtop Statistics - A great document that describes how to use the esxtop utility and how to interpret the various resource statistics that it reports.
- Getting VMware Hardware Alerts into HP/Msft Ops Manager - A VMworld 2007 session (free registration required) that describes the options available to ensure these physical server hardware-based alerts are communicated into MOM. This session also discusses options specific to Dell, HP and IBM hardware.
- Use SNMP with VMware ESX to monitor server statistics - A tip written that covers how to setup and configure SNMP to monitor ESX & ESXi hosts so you can send alerts and traps to applications that have SNMP receivers.
- VMware Update Manager Performance and Best Practices - A white paper from VMware on the Update Manager patching application that covers configuration and deployment tips, resource consumption, guest operating system tuning and network latencies.
- The Art of Patching your Virtual Infrastructure - An article that describes patching techniques to use with ESX and how to use the new Update Manager application to patch your hosts.
- VMware ESX Server 3 Patch Management -A VMworld 2007 session (free registration required) that covers the esxupdate utility, patch information, using patch repositories, scripting patch installation and troubleshooting and cleanup.
Top 10 things you must read about Processors (CPUs) and Virtualization
December 8th, 2008
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- ESX Server CPU Scheduling - A VMworld 2007 presentation (free registration required) on CPU scheduling that covers how it works, performance tips, how to use ESXTOP for analysis and using resource controls.
- ESX Server 2 Best Practices Using VMware Virtual SMP - A white paper from VMware that provides information on when and when not to use vSMP with virtual machines and also covers best practices for using vSMP.
- AMD-V Nested Paging - A white paper from AMD that discusses the existing software-based paging virtualization solutions and their associated performance overheads. It also introduces AMD-V™ Rapid Virtualization Indexing technology (nested paging) and highlights its advantages and demonstrates the performance uplift that may be seen with nested paging.
- Intel Virtualization Technology (VT) in Converged Application Platforms - A white paper from Intel that describes the architecture behind Intel’s VT technology and how it can benefit virtualized applications.
- Intel, AMD, VMware and Aircrafts - A great article from Massimo Re Ferre that covers the important things that you should now when choosing between Intel and AMD processors for your servers.
- ESX scheduler support for SMP VMs: co-scheduling and more - A good blog post from VMware’s VROOM performance team on using multi-processor VMs and how CPU co-scheduling works in ESX.
- Co-scheduling SMP VMs in VMware ESX Server - A document from VMware that explains what CPU co-scheduling is, how it works and the differences between strict and relaxed co-scheduling.
- VMkernel Scheduler - A document from VMware that provides details on how the VMkernel CPU scheduler works.
- How to be a Good Guest – A VMworld 2007 presentation (free registration required) given by AMD that covers CPU features and the challenges of using VMotion across different CPU types and how badly written software can cause problems.
- ESX Server 3 Ready Time Observations - A white paper from VMware that covers what ready time is, how it affects CPU scheduling, how to measure it and interpret the measurements.
Top 10 things you must read about vCenter Server
April 23rd, 2008
- Bulletproof VirtualCenter - A VMworld 2007 presentation on properly configuring and protecting VirtualCenter so it has high availability.
- VirtualCenter Database Maintenance: SQL Server - A white paper from VMware on how to maintain the VirtualCenter database when using SQL Server.
- Running VirtualCenter in a Virtual Machine - A white paper from VMware discussing the advantages and limitations of running VirtualCenter as a VM.
- VirtualCenter Database Performance for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - A white paper from VMware on performance statistic collections and there effect on the VirtualCenter database.
- VirtualCenter 2 Diagnostics - A VMworld 2006 presentation on troubleshooting problems with VirtualCenter.
- Managing Vmware VirtualCenter Roles & Permissions - A white paper from VMware on configuring roles and permissions in VirtualCenter.
- VirtualCenter 2.0 The Technical Insights - A VMware TSX 2007 presentation on the technical architecture of VirtualCenter.
- Template Usage and Best Practices - A white paper from VMware on creating, managing and using templates to deploy virtual machines.
- Replacing VirtualCenter Server Certificates - A technote from VMware on replacing the default certificates in VirtualCenter.
- VirtualCenter Technical Best practices - A document from VMware with technical details on VirtualCenter and vMotion.
Top 10 things you must read about Virtual Machines
March 18th, 2009
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- Anatomy of a virtual machine (Pt. 1) - An article from Tech Target that covers what a virtual machine is and the differences between the physical hardware of a host server and the virtual hardware that a virtual machine sees.
- Anatomy of a virtual machine (Pt. 2) - An article from Tech Target that covers what all the files that make up a virtual machine are and detailed information on each file type.
- The Reincarnation of Virtual Machines - An article from Mendel Rosenblum on what a virtual machine is, the history of virtual machines, the different types of virtualization and detailed information on hardware virtual machines.
- Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines and Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines - A VMworld 2007 presentation (free registration required) and white paper from VMware that describes how timekeeping hardware works in physical machines, how VMware products virtualize this hardware, and the various ways that guest operating systems use the hardware to keep time. They also cover a few known timekeeping issues and how to correct or work around them.
- CIS Virtual Machine Security Benchmark - A security benchmark for virtual machines from the Center for Internet Security. This document describes potential threats to virtual machines and has guidelines for securing and protecting them.
- Improving Guest Operating System Accounting for Descheduled Virtual Machines in ESX Server 3.x Systems - A white paper from VMware that covers the descheduled time accounting component of VMware Tools that provides improved accuracy for guest CPU time accounting and improved guest OS timekeeping. It explains how to install and monitor VMDesched on Linux and Windows guest operating systems. It also describes timer interrupt virtualization issues resolved by VMDesched and how VMDesched works.
- Virtual Machine Backup Guide - Documentation from VMware that provides information on different methods you can use to backup and restore virtual machines. It also describes how to setup and use VMware Consolidated Backup in your environment.
- Virtual Machine Mobility Planning Guide - Documentation from VMware that covers how to plan a virtual computing environment that allows maximum mobility for your virtual machines. It covers key issues you must address when moving virtual machines that must be modified to run in the new environment. Topics include how to move virtual machines between different VMware products and versions, platform differences and cross-generation mobility.
- Choosing a Network Adapter for Your Virtual Machine - A knowledgebase article from VMware that describes all the different virtual network adapter types that you can use in your virtual machines. It describes what each type is and under what circumstances it can be used.
- Understanding Full Virtualization, Paravirtualization and Hardware Assist - A white paper from VMware that provides an overview of x86 virtualization, different techniques for CPU virtualization, memory and device I/O virtualization and the benefits of paravirtualization.
Top 10 things you must read about VMFS & Virtual Disks
March 26th, 2009
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- VMware Virtual Machine File System: Technical Overview and Best Practices - A white paper from VMware that gives a technology overview of VMFS, including a discussion of features and their benefits. It also provides best practices and architectural considerations for deployment of VMFS.
- Recommendations for Aligning VMFS Partitions - A white paper from VMware that lists a summary of performance testing results, recommendations for VMware VMFS partition alignment, and the steps needed to create aligned VMware VMFS partitions.
- Advanced VMFS Configuration and Troubleshooting - A VMworld 2007 presentation (free registration required) that covers technical information on VMFS volumes, backing up metadata, SCSI reservations, partition alignment and more.
- ESX Server Raw Device Mapping - A white paper from VMware that covers what RDMs are, when to use them and when not to, how to manage RDMs and technical information on RDMs.
- Performance Characteristics of VMFS and RDM using a SAN - A white paper from VMware that covers the performance differences between using VMFS datasources for virtual disks and Raw Device Mappings. It describes an overview of the technologies, the test environment used, performance results and conclusions.
- VMware Virtual Disks - Virtual Disk Format 1.1 - A white paper from VMware that provides a high-level introduction to the layout of the files that make up a VMware virtual disk and drills down into the details of the data structures inside the virtual disk files.
- A Few Technical Threads - Part 1: RDMs - A good technical blog post from Chad Sakac of EMC that covers what features work when using RDMs and what don’t and when to use RDMs.
- A Few Technical Threads - Part 2: VMFS Resignaturing - A good technical blog post from Chad Sakac of EMC that covers why VMFS volumes get resignatured and tips to avoid resignaturing.
- Using VMware Converter to resize virtual disk files (Pt. 1) - A blog post from Tech Target that covers methods for resizing virtual disk files including use Converter, the VI Client and vmkfstools.
- Increasing virtual disk partition size using DISKPART or GpartEd (Pt. 2) - A blog post from Tech Target that covers methods for increasing the size of existing disk partitions once a virtual disk has been increased in size using Windows tools and Gnome Partition Editor.
Top 10 things you must read about VMware Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity
May 6th, 2008
- Tips and Tricks - Disaster Recovery in a Box (VMworld 2007) - A VMworld 2007 presentation on the technical details of implementing a cost effective DR solution and packaged solutions.
- VMware Infrastructure 3 Capabilities for Improving Disaster Recovery - A VMworld 2006 presentation on why using virtual machines is a great option for disaster recovery.
- New Trends in Disaster Recovery for VMware (VMworld 2007) - A VMworld 2007 presentation on current DR options and using Site Recovery Manager to automate DR workflows.
- VMware ESX Server and Storage Architecture Best Practices for Performance, Backup, and Disaster Recovery - A VMworld 2006 presentation on how to architect storage for use in a VMware DR environment.
- Disaster Recovery Virtualization - A white paper from VMware and DoubleTake on using virtual machines and data replication for disaster recovery.
- Leveraging VMware ESX Server in Disaster Recovery Solutions - A VMworld 2006 presentation with case studies on using VMware ESX as a DR solution.
- Disaster Recovery Solution Architecture for VMware (VMworld 2007) - A VMworld 2007 presentation describing how to use Site Recovery Manager as an effective DR solution.
- Innovative Approaches for High Availability and Disaster Recovery in Your VMware Infrastructure Environment - A VMworld 2006 presentation by Symantec on DR challenges and solutions and using Veritas Cluster Server as a DR option.
- VMware ESX Server as a Foundation for High Availability and Disaster Recovery for the Microsoft Server Platform - A VMworld 2006 presentation by EMC on using HA layers, DR layers and Contimuation of Operations.
- VMware users explore disaster recover options - An article on different DR options used by various companies with their VMware infrastructure.
Top 10 things you must read about VMware High Availability (HA)
January 8th, 2009
- VMware High Availability - Concepts, Implementation and Best Practices - A white paper from VMware that provides a high level overview of HA, technical details on how it works, how to implement it and best practices for using it.
- HA Technical Best Practices - A technical presentation from VMware on HA technical details, best practices and troubleshooting.
- Resource Management Guide - VMware’s official documentation on resource management which information on how to configure and manage HA.
- VMware HA Guidelines and Best Practices - A presentation from VMworld 2007 by VMware engineers that covers a technical overview of HA, configuration best practices, troubleshooting tips and technology directions.
- VMware HA and DRS Capacity Planning - A white paper from Kingston that covers HA specifically as how memory plays a role towards it and how to understand memory statistics and configure memory settings to work best with HA.
- VMware HA Implementation Notes - A document put together by a VMware Technical Account Manager to help answer frequently asked questions about using, configuring and understanding HA.
- So how exactly does HA’s admittance algorithm work? - A post from Chad Sakac that discusses in detail how the frequently misunderstood HA admittance algorithm works.
- VM HA - service console networking, isolation behavior - A post from Chad Sakac that discusses how HA isolation behavior works as well as the best way to configure the service console networking to work with HA.
- Virtual Machine Failure Monitoring - A white paper from VMware that describes the new VM Failure Monitoring feature that is part of HA starting with ESX 3.5 and how to configure it.
- HA Advanced Option settings - A post from Duncan Epping that lists all the many Advanced Option settings that can be used to configure HA with.
Top 10 things you must read about VMware Networking
May 5th, 2008
- VI3 Networking - Concepts and Components (VMworld 2007) - A VMworld 2007 presentation describing the VI3 network architecture and how to properly configure it.
- VI3 Networking - Advanced Configurations and Troubleshooting (VMworld 2007) - A VMworld 2007 presentation on advanced virtual networking topics with tips for troubleshooting problems.
- VMware ESX Server 3 802.1Q VLAN Solutions - Provides concepts and configuration tips for using 802.1Q VLAN tagging with your vSwitch configurations.
- Integrating Virtual Machines into the Cisco Data Center Architecture - A white paper written by Cisco on ESX server networking architecture and integration with Cisco network devices.
- Networking Performance in VMware ESX Server 3.5 - A white paper from VMware comparing virtual to physical networking performance.
- Network Throughput in a Virtual Infrastructure - A white paper from VMware that outlines the considerations that affect network throughput.
- ESX3 Networking Internals - A VMware TSX 2007 presentation on the internals of how ESX vSwitches function.
- High Performance ESX Networking - A VMware TSX 2007 presentation on ESX network design considerations.
- How To Configure Networking from the Service Console Command Line - A VMware KB article on setting up networking via the CLI, a must know if you lose your networking configuration and cannot connect to an ESX Server via the VI Client.
- Server Virtualization - Network Implications and Best Practices - A presentation from Cisco on network virtualization architecture and design considerations for Cisco networks to support virtual environments.
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