February 2014 archive

VSAN Links

VSAN Launch webinar replay

VMware Communities Roundtable Podcast 269 – #VSAN

Key Links

VMware Virtual SAN Now Available (VMware Company Blog)
The Dawn of Virtual SAN (VMware CTO Blog)
vSphere 5.5 Virtual SAN requirements (2058424) (VMware KB)
Virtual SAN Hardware Compatibility Guide (VMware.com)
Virtual SAN Hardware Quick Reference Guide (VMware.com)
VMware Virtual SAN Ready Nodes (VMware.com)
VMware Virtual SAN Datasheet (VMware.com)
VMware Virtual SAN Design & Sizing Guide (VMware.com)
VMware Virtual SAN Sizing Tool (VMware.com)
Virtual SAN 5.5 Validation Guide (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware VSAN Interactive Product Walkthrough (VMware.com)
VMware Virtual SAN Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Reference Manual (VMware Tech Paper)
What’s New in VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) (VMware Tech Paper)
The Best Infrastructure for OpenStack: VMware vSphere and Virtual SAN (VMware Tech Paper)
Some good VSAN related KB articles that you should read (vSphere-land)

Hands-On Lab

HOL-SDC-1308 – Virtual SAN (VSAN) and Virtual Storage Solutions (VMware HOL)

VMware VSAN Documentation

vSphere 5.5 Update 1 Storage Documentation (VMware.com)
vSphere 5.5 Update 2 Storage Documentation (VMware.com)
vSphere 5.5 Update 1 Troubleshooting Documentation (VMware.com)
ESXi 5.5 Update 1 Release Notes (VMware.com)
ESXi 5.5 Update 2 Release Notes (VMware.com)
vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1 Release Notes (VMware.com)
vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1 Release Notes (VMware.com)
Ready Node and Ready Block Recommended Configurations (VMware.com)

Beta Community Docs

VSAN Public Beta Registration (VMware.com)
VSAN Public Beta Program Community Site (VMware.com)
Virtual SAN (VSAN) Beta Technical FAQ (VMware.com)
Virtual SAN (VSAN) Proof of Concept (POC) Kit (VMware.com)
Proof Of Concept Guide for Virtual SAN (VMware.com)
Virtual SAN (beta) POC Pre-checklist v1.0a (VMware.com)
Virtual SAN (beta) POC Post-checklist v1.0a (VMware.com)
Virtual SAN Beta – Introduction (webinar slides) (VMware.com)
vSphere 5.5 Virtual SAN Public Beta Release Notes (VMware.com)
Virtual SAN Performance Webcast Final_121013.pdf (VMware.com)
VMware Virtual SAN Quick Monitoring & Troubleshooting Reference Guide (VMware.com)
VMware vSphere 5.5 Virtual SAN Hosted Beta (Lab Guide) (VMware.com)

Configuration/Management

Additional steps required to completely disable VSAN on ESXi host (Virtually Ghetto)
Why you should rename the default VSAN Datastore name (Virtually Ghetto)
VMware VSAN – Virtual SAN – How to configure (Virtual-blog)
Configure Disk Redundancy VMware VSAN – Virtual SAN (Virtual-blog)
I created a folder on my VSAN datastore, but how do I delete it? (Yellow Bricks)
Be careful when defining a VM storage policy for VSAN (Yellow Bricks)
Initialized disks to be used by VSAN task completed successfully, but no disks added? (Yellow Bricks)
How do you know where an object is located with Virtual SAN? (Yellow Bricks)

Cormac Hogan Series

VSAN Part 1 – A first look at VSAN (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 2 – What do you need to get started? (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 3 – It is not a Virtual Storage Appliance (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 4 – Understanding Objects and Components (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 5 – The role of VASA (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 6 – Manual or Automatic Mode (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 7 – Capabilities and VM Storage Policies (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 8 – The role of the SSD (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 9 – Host Failure Scenarios & vSphere HA Interop (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 10 – Changing VM Storage Policy on-the-fly (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 11 – Shutting down the VSAN cluster (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 12 – SPBM extensions in RVC (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 13 – Examining the .vswp object (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 14 – Host Memory Requirements (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 15 – Multicast Requirement for networking – Misconfiguration detected (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 16 – Reclaiming disks for other uses (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 17 – Removing a Disk Group from a Host (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 18 – VM Home Namespace and VM Storage Policies (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 19 – Common VSAN Configuration Gotchas (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 20 – VM Swap and VM Storage Policies (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 21 – What is a witness? (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 22 – Policy Compliance Status (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 23 – Why is my Storage Object Striped? (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 24 – Why is VSAN deploying thick disks? (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 25 – How many hosts needed to tolerate failures? (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 26 – Does Disk Size Matter? (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 27 – VM Memory Snapshot Considerations (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 28 – RVC login difficulties (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 29 – Cannot complete file creation operation (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 30 – Difference between Absent and Degraded (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 31 – Object compliance and operational status (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 32 – Datastore capacity not adding up (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 33 – Some common misconceptions explained (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 34 – how many disks are needed for stripe width (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN Part 35 – Considerations when dynamically changing policy (Cormac Hogan)

Design Considerations

Of Software-Defined Storage and HCLs (Chuck’s Blog)
My completely ridiculous VSAN test (Gabe’s Virtual World)
My VSAN Nightmare (Reddit)
Root cause analysis of my VSAN outage (Reddit)
Checking hardware recommendations might prevent VSAN nightmare (UP2V)
About VSAN capacity and VMDK placement (viktorious.nl)
VMware Virtual SAN Scalability Limits – VSAN (Virtual-blog)
STO5027 VMware Virtual SAN Technical Best Practices (virtualarchitect.nl)
Virtual SAN Hardware Guidance Part 1 – Solid State Drives (VMware vSphere Blog)
Virtual SAN Hardware Guidance Part II – Storage Controllers (VMware vSphere Blog)
Virtual SAN – Sizing Considerations (VMware vSphere Blog)
VSAN and Storage Controllers (VMware vSphere Blog)
Virtual SAN & Disk Groups (VMware vSphere Blog)
Three Hosts, two VSAN Datastores! (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN: Cross Cluster Migrations (VMware vSphere Blog)
Do You Need Hardware Guidance to Accelerate Your Virtual SAN Deployment? (VMware vSphere Blog)
Designing your hardware for Virtual SAN (Yellow Bricks)
VSAN HCL more than VSAN-ready nodes (Yellow Bricks)
Selecting a disk controller for VSAN using the HCL (Yellow Bricks)
Building a hyper-converged platform using VMware technology part 1 (Yellow Bricks)
Building a hyper-converged platform using VMware technology part 2 (Yellow Bricks)
Building a hyper-converged platform using VMware technology part 3 (Yellow Bricks)
VSAN and the AHCI controller (hint: not supported!) (Yellow Bricks)
Virtual SAN and Network IO Control (Yellow Bricks)
How VSAN handles a disk or host failure (Yellow Bricks)
Virtual SAN and Data Locality/Gravity (Yellow Bricks)
VSAN Design Consideration: Booting ESXi from USB with VSAN? (Yellow Bricks)
Isolation / Partition scenario with VSAN cluster, how is this handled? (Yellow Bricks)
VMware vSphere Virtual SAN design considerations… (Yellow Bricks)
Virtual SAN GA update: Flash vs Magnetic Disk ratio (Yellow Bricks)
Virtual SAN Read IO – cache / buffer / spindles (Yellow Bricks)
Pretty pictures Friday, the VSAN edition… (Yellow Bricks)
vSphere Metro Storage Cluster using Virtual SAN, can I do it? (Yellow Bricks)
How about an All Flash Virtual SAN? (Yellow Bricks)
vSphere HA and VMs per Datastore limit! (Yellow Bricks)
VSAN – Misconfiguration Detected (Yellow Bricks)
30K for a VSAN host @theregister? I can configure one for 2250 USD! (Yellow Bricks)
4 is the minimum number of hosts for VSAN if you ask me (Yellow Bricks)

General

Essential Virtual SAN (VSAN): Administrator’s Guide to VMware VSAN (Safari Books Online)
Five Reasons Why VSAN Is Different (Chuck’s Blog)
Considering VSAN (Chuck’s Blog)
Using VSAN with Storage Arrays (Chuck’s Blog)
Virtual SAN (VSAN) Announcement Review (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN and vSphere Replication Interop (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN & VDP Interop (Cormac Hogan)
VSAN and vCenter Operations Interop (Cormac Hogan)
My VSAN session from the 2014 Nordics VMUG (YouTube) (Cormac Hogan)
Tips for a successful VSAN Proof of Concept (Cormac Hogan)
What about VSAN for SMB/SME? (DefinIT)
VMware VSAN has arrived! (DiscoPosse)
VMware VSAN Technical Notes (EckTech)
VMware VSAN Video (ESX Virtualization)
VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) Launch and Configuration Maximums (ESX Virtualization)
VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) 1.0 GA – FAQ, Pricing and Design Options (ESX Virtualization)
Why I love VSAN! (Frank Denneman)
Is VSAN more affordable? (Hans Deleenheer)
VSAN Clustering – Fact Check Update! (Hans Deleenheer)
VMware VSAN Launch Q&A (Ivobeerens.nl)
VMware’s new VSAN – What Matters (Keith Norbie)
VMware VSAN will be GA in the week of March 10. Licensing per socket or desktop (UP2V)
VMworld 2013: What’s New in 5.5 – vSAN (Mike Laverick)
VMworld 2013: What’s New in VSAN 1.0 (Mike Laverick)
VSAN is here: Hurray ! and NOFUD was used! (Paul Meehan)
What Roles Do Storage Profiles Play in VMware Virtual SAN Storage? (Petri)
VMware releases vSphere 5.5 U1 (SnowVM)
VSAN: A Giant Leap… Upwards? (Stu Radnidge)
VSAN – The Unspoken Truth (Technodrone)
VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) is now available for download. Licensed per CPU or user (UP2V)
vSphere 5.5 VSAN, Introducing Your New Storage Vendor VMware (vClouds)
vSphere 5.5 Update 1 released to include VMware VSAN (vClouds)
VSAN Pricing (vClouds)
The Significance of VMware VSAN (vDestination)
VMware VSAN: revolution, evolution or reinventing the wheel? (vInfrastructure Blog)
A few thoughts and opinions on VSAN and Hyperconvergence (Virtual Geek)
VMware VSAN cements changes coming to the data center (Virtualization Admin)
VSAN Pricing Comparison (Virtualization Practice)
Working with VMware’s Virtual SAN (Virtualization Review)
VMware VSAN – 5 Reasons It’s Unique: Video Interview, Pricing, Slide Deck, & VSAN Links (Virtualization Software)
VSAN all things! (Virtxpert)
VMware Communities Roundtable Podcast – 251 – VSAN (VMware.com)
VMware vSAN on Open Compute (VMware Admins)
Virtual SAN: Powerfully Simple and Simply Powerful (VMware CTO Office)
Virtual SAN VM Density Contest Results! (VMware vSphere Blog)
Get Ready for Virtual SAN Ready Node and Ready Block (VMware vSphere Blog)
Backing up VMs on VSAN with VDP Advanced and Data Domain (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN: 32 Node Scale Out Capability (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN: Witness Component Deployment Logic (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN Interoperability: vCloud Automation Center (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN Interoperability: vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager (VMware vSphere Blog)
Myth versus Math: Setting the Record Straight on Virtual SAN (VMware vSphere Blog)
vSAN 1.0 Announcement (VMwaremine)
vSphere 5.5 Availability and VSAN Public Beta (vNinja.net)
VSAN – The Unspoken Future (vNinja.net)
vSphere 5.5 Improvements Part 4 – Virtual SAN (VSAN) (Wahl Network)
In Which I Muse Over VMware’s Virtual SAN Architecture (Wahl Network)
Exploring VMware VSAN Ready Nodes, Per-Socket Pricing, and Design Guides (Wahl Network)
What’s New in vCloud Suite 5.5: Virtual SAN (VSAN) (WoodITWork)
VSAN for ROBO? (Yellow Bricks)
VSAN – The spoken reality (Yellow Bricks)
Virtual SAN GA aka vSphere 5.5 Update 1 (Yellow Bricks)
VMware Virtual SAN launch and book pre-announcement! (Yellow Bricks)
Introduction to VMware vSphere Virtual SAN (Yellow Bricks)
Frequently asked questions about Virtual SAN / VSAN (Yellow Bricks)
Virtual SAN news flash pt 1 (Yellow Bricks)

Home Labs

Homelab Thoughts – VSAN (ESX Virtualization)
Build vSAN vSphere Lab using PowerCLI (Everything Should Be Virtual)
VMware’s VSAN in the Home Lab (Sean Crookston)
DIY converged server software defined storage on a budget using Lenovo TS140 (SYS-CON)
VMware VSAN meets EZLAB (Virtual JAD)
My VSAN home lab configuration (Virtualize Tips)
VSAN – The Migration from FreeNAS (VMexplorer)
Home Lab – Part 4.1: VSAN Home Build (vWilmo)
Home Lab – Part 4.2: VSAN Configuration (vWilmo)
Testing vSphere Virtual SAN in your virtual lab with vSphere 5.5 (Yellow Bricks)
Rebuilding your Virtual SAN Lab? Wipe the disks first! (Yellow Bricks)

Installation

Getting started with Fusion-io and VSAN (Cormac Hogan)
VMware VSAN configuration steps with nested ESXi hypervisors (ESX Virtualization)
My VSAN Journey – Part 1 – The homebrew “node” (ESX Virtualization)
My VSAN journey – Part 2 – How-to delete partitions to prepare disks for VSAN if the disks aren’t clean (ESX Virtualization)
My VSAN Journey Part 3 – VSAN IO cards – search the VMware HCL (ESX Virtualization)
How to Setup and Configure VMware vSAN storage (Petri)
VSAN – Installation (Tim’s IT Blog)
How to create a VMware Virtual SAN Network (Unix Arena)
VSAN: Local disks not showing up? Wipe your disks straight from the ESXi console (Viktorious.nl)
How to quickly setup and test VMware VSAN (Virtual SAN) using Nested ESXi (Virtually Ghetto)
vSphere 5.5 – My 1st VSAN (Hands on Experience) (vTricks)

KnowledgeBase Articles

Retaining virtual machines of Virtual SAN Beta cluster when upgrading to vSphere 5.5 Update 1 (2074147) (VMware KB)
Enabling or disabling a Virtual SAN cluster (2058322) (VMware KB)
Configuring Virtual SAN VMkernel networking (2058368) (VMware KB)
Adding more than 16 hosts to a Virtual SAN cluster (2073930) (VMware KB)
VMware Virtual SAN datastores cannot store host-local and system swap files (2073944) (VMware KB)
Virtual SAN insufficient memory (2071753) (VMware KB)
Collecting Virtual SAN (VSAN) support logs and uploading to VMware (2072796) (VMware KB)
Moving Disk Groups to a New Virtual SAN cluster (2073931) (VMware KB)
Automatic disk claiming does not work as expected if license is applied after enabling VMware Virtual SAN (2073948) (VMware KB)
Virtual SAN node reached threshold of opened components (2071379) (VMware KB)
Enabling or capturing performance statistics using Virtual SAN Observer for VMware Virtual SAN (2064240) (VMware KB)
Network interfaces used for Virtual SAN are not ready (2058521) (VMware KB)
Adding a host back to a Virtual SAN cluster after an ESXi host rebuild (2059091) (VMware KB)
Virtual SAN clustering has been disabled on an ESXi host (2058794) (VMware KB)
Virtual SAN networking experiences connectivity problems (2058529) (VMware KB)
Virtual SAN network redundancy has been reduced (2058530) (VMware KB)
Enabling Virtual SAN on vSphere 5.5 does not create disk groups (2060786) (VMware KB)

News/Analyst

VMware VSAN software-defined storage comes out of beta (Computer Weekly)
As VSAN 2.0 goes beta VMware aims at hyper-converged x86 storage (Computer Weekly)
VMware Poised To Unleash vSAN Storage Tech, But Pricing Still Unclear (CRN)
VMware to launch storage solution VSAN this quarter (CRN)
SimpliVity CEO: We Love VMware And We’re Not Threatened By VSAN (CRN)
VMware To Begin Selling VSAN Next Week, But Still Isn’t Sharing Pricing (CRN)
VMware Details VSAN Pricing: Focus On Simplicity (CRN)
VMware’s Virtual SAN Threatens Traditional Data Storage Models (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Users Line Up For VMware Virtual SAN Storage (Enterprise Tech)
vSAN Pricing: Virtual Storage Costs Like Virtual Servers (Enterprise Tech)
A seismic shift is about to hit the SAN (MicroScope)
Are Server SANs The Future Or Just Hype? (Network Computing)
Server SANs And Healthy Paranoia (Network Computing)
Server SANs: The Dark Side (Network Computing)
How VMware wants to reinvent the SAN (Network World)
The Top 5 Opportunities for VMware EVO:RAIL Partners (Network World)
VMware Virtual SAN shines storage spotlight on VMware, hyper-convergence (SearchVirtualStorage)
Before you buy, be sure you can meet extensive VSAN requirements (SearchVirtualStorage)
Early users found VSAN hardware difficult, management easy (SearchVirtualStorage)
Top five VMware Virtual SAN takeaways of 2014 (SearchVirtualStorage)
Can VMware VSAN offer RAID-like safeguards? (SearchVMware)
Talking about the future of VSAN with Duncan Epping (SearchVMware)
VMware VSAN creating buzz around hyperconverged infrastructure (Silicon Angle)
VMware: Get your hands dirty + build your own VSAN nodes (Silicon Angle)
New CTO offers guidance on VMware software-defined data center (Tech Target)
VMware Offers Virtual SAN for vSphere (Tech Week Europe)
VMware embiggens VSAN to petabyte scale (The Register)
VSAN emerges at a WHOPPING 32 nodes and two MEEELION IOPS (The Register)
VMware wanted to keep its VSAN pricing secret – now it’s all over the web (The Register)
Wanted: Virtual Steve Jobs to tell us one more thing about VSAN (The Register)
VMware drops vSphere 5.5 Update 1 into sysadmins’ laps (The Register)
It’s storage’s HOLY GRAIL: VSANs, PSANs and virtual silos (The Register)
VMware happy for VSANs to work with actual SANs (The Register)
VMware reveals more VSAN nodes (The Register)
Why not build your own VSAN hardware, asks VMware (The Register)
Speedy storage server sales stumps sysadmin scribe: Who buys this? (The Register)
Is Trevor Pott-y? Nope – he’s bang on about VSAN performance (The Register)
VSANs choking on VMware’s recommended components (The Register)
VMware says anyone – not just EMC – can play with its best bits (The Register)
Server SANs: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater (The Register)
News: VSAN Is Now GA (Virtualization Practice)
News: VMware VSAN GA Release Ships with vSphere 5.5 Update 1 (Virtualization Practice)
Will Scale-Out Architectures Kill Enterprise Storage? (Virtualization Practice)
VMware Announces Broad Ecosystem Support for VMware Virtual SAN (Wall Street Journal)
VMware (VMW) PT Raised to $124 at Jefferies on vSAN Product (Wall Street Pit)
Cube Conversations – VSAN Thrusts VMware into Server SAN Market (Wikibon)
VMware VSAN vs the Simplicity of Hyperconvergence (Wikibon)

Performance

VMware’s VSAN Benchmarks: Under The Hood (Network Computing)
VMware VSAN Posts 2 Million IOPS (Storage Review)
How to Supercharge your Virtual SAN Cluster (2 Million IOPS!!!) (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN Performance Testing – Part I (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN Performance Testing – Part II (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN Performance Testing – Part III (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN Performance Testing – Part IV (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Virtual SAN: Performance with Microsoft Exchange Server (VMware vSphere Blog)
Web 2.0 Application Performance on VMware Virtual SAN (VMware Tech Paper)
VMware Virtual SAN Performance with Microsoft SQL Server (VMware Tech Paper)
VDI Benchmarking Using View Planner on VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) (VMware Vroom)
VDI Benchmarking Using View Planner on VMware Virtual SAN – Part 2 (VMware Vroom)
VDI Benchmarking Using View Planner on VMware Virtual SAN – Part 3 (VMware Vroom)
VDI Performance Benchmarking on VMware Virtual SAN 5.5 (VMware Vroom)

Ruby vSphere Console

VSAN Observer (Punching Clouds)
vSphere 5.5: Using RVC VSAN Observer Pt1 (Punching Clouds)
vSphere 5.5: Using RVC VSAN Observer Pt2 (Punching Clouds)
Manage VSAN with RVC Part 1 – Basic Configuration Tasks (Virten.net)
Manage VSAN with RVC Part 2 – VSAN Cluster Administration (Virten.net)
Manage VSAN with RVC Part 3 – Object Management (Virten.net)
Manage VSAN with RVC Part 4 – Troubleshooting (Virten.net)
Manage VSAN with RVC Part 5 – Observer (Virten.net)
VMware Virtual SAN Observer Offline Mode (VMware vSphere Blog)
How to configure the Virtual SAN observer for monitoring/troubleshooting (Yellow Bricks)

Scripting/Command Line

Using the VSAN Observer in vCenter 5.5 (Erik Bussink)
Creating a VSAN Cluster with PowerCLI (Virtu-Al)
vdq – A useful little VSAN utility (Virtually Ghetto)
VMware VSAN APIs (Virtually Ghetto)
Required ESXi advanced setting to support 16+ node VSAN Cluster (Virtually Ghetto)
Restoring VSAN VM Storage Policies without vCenter Part 1: Using cmmds-tool (Virtually Ghetto)
Restoring VSAN VM Storage Policy without vCenter Part 2: Using vSphere API (Virtually Ghetto)
Exploring VSAN APIs Part 1 – Enable VSAN Cluster (Virtually Ghetto)
Exploring VSAN APIs Part 2 – Query available SSDs (Virtually Ghetto)
Exploring VSAN APIs Part 3 – Enable VSAN Traffic Type (Virtually Ghetto)
Exploring VSAN APIs Part 4 – VSAN Disk Mappings (Virtually Ghetto)
How to bootstrap vCenter Server onto a single VSAN node Part 1? (Virtually Ghetto)
How to bootstrap vCenter Server onto a single VSAN node Part 2? (Virtually Ghetto)
vSphere PowerCLI 5.8 SPBM Walkthrough (Part 1): Introduction (VMware vSphere Blog)
vSphere PowerCLI 5.8 SPBM Walkthrough (Part 2): Creating vSphere Storage Policies (VMware vSphere Blog)
vSphere PowerCLI 5.8 SPBM – Part3: Associating vSphere Storage Policies (VMware vSphere Blog)
vSphere PowerCLI 5.8 SPBM Walkthrough (Part4): Provisioning a new VM (VMware vSphere Blog)

Storage Policies

How to Create VMware vSAN Storage Policies (Petri)
Using VSAN Storage Policies in vCloud Automation Center (Virtual JAD)
Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) Configuration Maximums (2062751) (VMware KB)
vSphere Storage Policy Based Management Overview (part 1) (VMware vSphere Blog)
vSphere Storage Policy Based Management Overview (part 2) (VMware vSphere Blog)
VSAN Basics – Changing a VM’s storage policy (Yellow Bricks)

Troubleshooting

Virtual SAN Troubleshooting: Multicast (VMware vSphere Blog)
Virtual SAN Troubleshooting: Automating Multicast Configuration (VMware vSphere Blog)

VDI

VSAN with Horizon View Interop (Cormac Hogan)
VMware VSAN Datastores supported on Horizon View 5.3.1 (ESX Virtualization)
How does VMware VSAN help Horizon View? (My Virtual Cloud)
How is Horizon View configured for VMware VSAN? (My Virtual Cloud)
Why is Content-Based Read Cache (CBRC) so important for Horizon View and VSAN? (My Virtual Cloud)
Horizon View 5.3.1 Is Here and Supports VMware Virtual SAN (VMware EUC Blog)
Horizon 6.0 and Virtual SAN: A match made in …… (VMware vSphere Blog)
VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture (VMware Tech Paper)
Horizon View 5.3.1 on VMware Virtual SAN – Quick Start Guide (2073795) (VMware KB)

VMware TV videos

VMworld 2013 session – STO5391 – VMware Virtual SAN (VMware TV)
VMware Virtual SAN Strategy: Storage for the Software-Defined Data Center (VMware TV)
Virtual SAN Beta Webinar – Introduction to VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) (VMware TV)
Virtual SAN (VSAN) Beta Webinar – How to Install, Configure & Manage (video) (VMware TV)
Migrating Virtual Machines Across VMware Virtual SAN Clusters (VMware TV)
Virtual SAN (VSAN) Setup (VMware TV)
VMware Virtual SAN: Scale Up Storage Capacity (VMware TV)
VMware Virtual SAN: 32 Node Scalability (Scale Out) (VMware TV)
How To Monitor Virtual SAN (VSAN) (VMware TV)
How to Troubleshoot Your Virtual SAN (VSAN) (VMware TV)
Deploying a Virtual Machine on Virtual SAN (VSAN) (VMware TV)
Changing a VM Storage Policy On-The-Fly with VSAN (VMware TV)
Virtual SAN (VSAN) & VM Availability (VMware TV)
Virtual SAN (VSAN) & vSphere HA Interoperability (VMware TV)
VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) Partner Montage (VMware TV)
Virtual SAN (VSAN) and the End User Computing Use Case (VMware TV)
VMware Virtual SAN Interoperability: OpenStack Framework Integration (VMware TV)
Virtual SAN Interoperability – Planned migration with vSphere Replication and SRM (VMware TV)
DOE Fund has found “The Holy Grail of Storage” using VMware Virtual SAN in New Facilities (VMware TV)
Adobe Systems Improves Internally and Deploys Solutions Faster with VMware Virtual SAN (VMware TV)
Cincinnati Bell Achieves Scalable Cloud Infrastructure & Reduces Costs with VMware Virtual SAN (VMware TV)
Itrica Provides Scalable Cloud Solutions using VMware Virtual SAN (VMware TV)

Share This:

How you can help support vSphere-land and top blog voting

There is a ton of work that goes into maintaining my websites, I have to gather and sort through lots of links and information, organize it and publish it. In addition the annual top blog voting contest is no small effort either and involves a ton of work collecting data, building forms, processing data, updating websites, building surveys and much more. From start to finish this usually takes at least 30-40 hours of my time.

So as a small favor in return I would appreciate if you checkout the companies that sponsor my family of websites that help make all this possible and also give them a follow on Twitter.

Zerto



Zerto provides enterprise-class business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solutions for virtualized infrastructure and cloud. Zerto won Best of Show at VMworld 2011, as well as 2011 Product of the Year Gold Award because our software, Zerto Virtual Replication, is the industry’s first hypervisor-based replication solution for tier-one applications. Zerto Disaster Recovery solutions replace traditional array-based BCDR that was not built to deal with virtual environments. Zerto recently launched a new version (3.1) of Zerto Virtual Replication that you can find out more about here.

Infinio


Infinio Accelerator lets you separate performance from capacity. For a fraction of the price of hardware-based products, Accelerator offers a software-only solution that extends the performance life of the NAS you already have. Accelerator is a virtual appliance that uses server-side caching to minimize the I/O traffic load on central storage. Infinio Accelerator won a “Best of VMworld” award, being named a Finalist in the Best New Technology category. I recently recorded a webinar for Infinio on right-sizing storage for virtual environments that you might find interesting. They also have another webinar available on 5 ways to get better performance from NAS-Backed VMs as well as a great technical video series on content-based caching.

Unitrends



Unitrends, a leader in enterprise-level data protection, offers the #1 all-in-one backup solution for virtual, physical and cloud. Building on over 20 years of industry firsts, Unitrends continues to lead the market. Unitrends is used by IT professionals for backup of their virtual and physical servers and for performing disaster recovery to remote locations or to private or public cloud. Unitrends not only continues to set the standard in virtual and physical server data protection, but its US-based support team boasts a 99% customer satisfaction rate, further reinforcing its reputation for quality. Unitrends recently acquired PHD Virtual, another leading backup company for VMware environments and is kicking off a fundraising effort to support the Special Olympics.

StratoGen



StratoGen is a leading VMware hosting provider with award winning cloud platforms in the US, UK and Asia. From single virtual machines to dedicated private clouds, StratoGen delivers a powerful yet cost effective cloud hosting solution. The StratoGen Cloud is engineered from the ground up to be extremely dynamic and resilient, allowing you to add more servers or resources instantly. StratoGen hosted VMware services include a 100% uptime service level guarantee. The StratoGen Cloud can be seamlessly integrated with any on-site VMware infrastructure you may have, offering a “single pane” management console for both your hosted and on-site resources. StratoGen offers a wide range of hosted solutions for VMware environments including Hosted Desktops, Disaster Recovery, VMware Image Hosting and VMware Hosting.

SolarWinds



SolarWinds mission has been to provide purpose-built products that are designed to make IT professionals jobs easier. SolarWinds was built by network and systems engineers who know what it takes to manage today’s dynamic IT environments. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager delivers integrated VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V capacity planning, performance monitoring, VM sprawl control, configuration management, and chargeback automation; all in one awesomely affordable product that’s easy to download, deploy, and use. SolarWinds believes you should try their software before you buy and we offer free trials that deliver full product functionality. Be sure and try out a free trial of Virtualization Manager so you can find out what you’re missing that vCenter Server can’t provide.

Turbonomic



VMTurbo delivers an intelligent workload management solution providing service assurance and infrastructure efficiency for cloud and virtualized environments. With an emphasis on prevention, VMTurbo delivers an intelligent and automated control plane for cloud and virtualized datacenters. It closes the loop between collecting data and controlling the environment – enabling administrators to automate management of dynamic virtualized environments to ensure service levels, while maximizing efficiency. Easy to deploy and simple to administer, VMTurbo Operations Manager assures application performance, operational efficiency and optimal resource utilization. VMTurbo recently released a new version (4.5) of their Operations Manager product and offers a free 30-day trial so you can experience first-hand a smarter approach to virtualization management.

Veeam



Veeam is Modern Data Protection that is built for Virtualization and the Cloud. Their customers understand that virtual environments bring unique challenges. That’s why more than 73,000 customers chose Veeam to protect over 4 million VMs. Our powerful, easy-to-use and affordable solutions help solve virtualization challenges – making Veeam the perfect fit for the modern datacenter. Veeam Backup & Replication delivers innovative VMware backup, Hyper-V backup, recovery and replication. This #1 VM Backup solution helps organizations meet RPOs and RTOs, save time, eliminate risk and dramatically reduce capital and operational costs. Veeam has won 55 awards including Product of the Year for 2013 that serve to validate their success in the virtualization industry. Be sure and download their free tool for VMware and Hyper-V backup and also check out the Veeam Community podcast.

Share This:

The importance of securing your virtual world

vm-thief3

Information security breaches are in the news a lot these days, but for many companies security doesn’t get the attention it deserves, until something bad happens. Let’s face it, implementing better security in a data center is a pain in the ass and inconveniences everyone from administrators to end users. Better security doesn’t make anyone’s job easier and as a result everyone tends to be resistant to it. But the reality is that unless you want to end up in the newspaper headlines you have to do it, and not just make a half-ass effort at it, you need to do it right and you also need to stay vigilant at it. Security isn’t something you do once and you’re done, it’s an ongoing job that requires discipline, time and effort to do.

Implementing virtualization makes security a more difficult job, not only do you have to secure the physical side of your data center but you also have to secure the virtual side. In a traditional non-virtualized environment implementing security was much simpler, adding virtualization to the mix makes it much more difficult and complicated as there are many more attack vectors that you need to protect. You would probably notice someone carrying a physical server out of your data center, but in a virtual environment whole servers can leave your data center in someones pocket, without them even entering your data center.

I did an article a while back for Tech Target, “How To Steal a VM in 3 Easy Steps” that described a simple scenario on how someone could make copy a VM and carry it home with them on a flash drive. From there they could easily power it on in their own environment and access the OS,  applications and data on it. To prevent this you need to start by following security best practices for virtualization and make sure you understand where the weak points are in your virtual environment and secure them properly.

The ESXi hypervisor has good built-in security but it’s easy to change settings to make administration easier that results in weakening it and opening up attack points into your virtual environment. VMware has just updated their Security of the vSphere Hypervisor white paper which provides a good overview of the security things that you need to know in vSphere, definitely give this a read. There are also a number of very good 3rd party virtualization security products from vendors like Catbird and HyTrust that can help provide an additional layer of security and monitoring to improve the security of your virtual environment. Also check out some of the security resources below:

Share This:

Your ad here, sponsorship opportunity on the vSphere-land websites

I limit the number of sponsors that advertise on vSphere-land and have one advertising slot currently open. Most of my sponsors are long term repeat sponsors so I don’t often have open slots but I currently have one due to one of my long time sponsors ending blog sponsorship’s after they were acquired. Their loss is your gain, I have one slot open if any companies are interested in sponsoring the vSphere-land family of websites. For more information and rates please see this page and contact me at esiebert7625 at yahoo.com.

help_wanted1

Share This:

Voting now open for the 2014 top VMware & virtualization blogs

top-vblog-2014-2-crop

There are over 300 blogs dedicated to VMware and virtualization, here’s your chance to pick your favorites and determine the top blogs. The last voting was a year ago and new bloggers are springing up every month. When casting your votes please keep the following in mind about the blogs.

  • Longevity – Anyone can start a blog but it requires dedication, time & effort to keep it going. Some bloggers start a blog only to have it fall to the wayside several months later. Things always come up in life but the good bloggers keep going regardless of what is happening in their life.
  • Length – It’s easy to make a quick blog post without much content, nothing wrong with this as long as you have good content in the post that people will enjoy. But some bloggers post pretty long detailed posts which takes a lot of time and effort to produce. The tip of the hat goes to these guys that burn the midnight oil trying to get you some great detailed information.
  • Frequency – Some bloggers post several times a week which provides readers with lots of content. This requires a lot of effort as bloggers have to come up with more content ideas to write about. Frequency ties into length, some do high frequency/low length, some do low frequency/high length, some do both. They’re all good and require a lot of time and effort on the bloggers part.
  • Quality – It all comes down to whats in the blog post regardless of how often or how long the blog posts are. After reading a blog post if you come away with learning something that you did not previously know and it benefits you in some way then you know you are reading a quality post. Good quality is usually the result of original content, its easy to re-hash something previously published elsewhere, the good bloggers come up with unique content or put their own unique spin on popular topics.

So please take all this into account when casting your votes, here are some more details on the voting:

  • You can pick 10 of your favorite blogs and also rank them in your order of preference after you pick your 10. The results will be weighted with #1 ranking getting 10 points and #10 rankings getting 1 point. Point totals will be tabulated and from them the top 50 will be determined.
  • Blogs are listed on the ballot  in alphabetical order, the current top 50 blogs are highlighted with their current ranking in parentheses, the current top 10 are also bolded so they stand out. So please go through the whole list when making your choices (Duncan ended up on the bottom).
  • Again this year we also having voting in special categories to help distinguish certain types of blogs. The choices of which blogs to include in the categories was the result of this survey and my best guessing. I did cut down on some of the categories this year to keep it simple. The categories are independent of the general voting so first pick and rank your top 10 overall favorite blogs and then choose your favorite blog in each category.
  • Voting will run until 3/17, afterwards the results will be determined and announced on a special live podcast with myself, Simon Seagrave, David Davis, Rick Vanover and John Troyer.
  • Duplicate vote protection is enabled, we’ll be using geolocation, IP addresses & cookies to protect against duplicate votes. This isn’t Chicago, please be honest and fair when voting, any suspicious votes will be tossed.
  • If you are not familiar with a blog you can click on it in the survey to view it or use my vLaunchpad to see links to them all. Try not to pick blogs based just on names but also take content into account. There are a lot of good blogs currently not in the top 50 that deserve to be there.

This year we will be doing drawings for some great prize giveaways courtesy of Veeam that include Nexus tablets, iWatches, headphones and more. Anyone that votes for the top blogs is eligible to win one of the prizes. In addition any blogger that makes the top 50 blog list is eligible to win prizes. Winners will be determined by a random drawing and announced on a special live results podcast after the voting ends.

backup-buynow-260x130-b

So what are you waiting for, head on over and take the survey to cast your ballot and reward the best bloggers for their hard work and dedication by letting them know that you appreciate them.

vote-button1

Share This:

VMware tells its partners – No Soup For You

soup-nazi1

In case you hadn’t heard, VMware has become the soup nazi at their annual Partner Exchange (PEX) conference telling both Veeam and Nutanix and probably more I’m sure, thanks but no thanks, we don’t want you at our partner conference. While it’s understandable that VMware would not want vendor’s like Microsoft, Oracle & Citrix at their conference, they’ve started excluding more vendors that have any type of conflict of interest with VMware products.

VMware walks a fine line these days as they compete with just about any vendor that makes software products for the data center and they also compete with most hardware vendors as well. When it comes to hardware VMware prefers you to buy dumb hardware and let their software layer handle the intelligence of the hardware. The reality of it is, VMware really competes with almost every hardware and software and even cloud vendor out there, some more so than others but the way it is, it’s VMware versus all comers for world domination in the data center.

This wasn’t always the case, a long time ago in a data center far far away, server virtualization was in its infancy and VMware was a little known company that was selling a disruptive technology that would go against the grain of the traditional data center. Back then VMware sold very few products, basically a hypervisor (ESX) and a server to manage it (VirtualCenter). As server virtualization took off and started to become more popular a huge 3rd party ecosystem grew as vendors sprung up to fulfill the needs caused by this new and unconventional shift in the data center.

There were needs in almost every area including security, backup & recovery, management, automation, monitoring and much more. These 3rd party products complemented VMware’s hypervisor and made it stronger and just like Apple and their dominance with 3rd party apps, was a combination that was hard to beat. Then as virtualization took off VMware started branching out, making acquisitions to expand their line-up to fill in the gaps that 3rd party products used to fulfill for them.

If you look at the sponsor list for PEX this year and take out the big five that VMware can’t afford to exclude, the rest looks almost like a line-up for a minor league baseball team. It’s a shame that VMware would start shutting the door as they have many great loyal partners that have helped carry them over the years. I know PEX is a different type of conference and you have both partners and re-sellers there but if VMware is tightening down on who can be at PEX, are they going to start doing the same thing at VMworld?

It’s a shame that Veeam won’t be at PEX this year, they are one of the companies that rode the coat tails of virtualization and have become a huge success as a result. While it’s VMware’s conference and they have every right to pick and choose who can be there, it’s definitely a sign that VMware has gotten to the point that they really don’t need to rely on their partners as much as they have in the past.

Share This:

Nominations for the 2014 Top Blog voting categories are now open!

It’s time to do the annual top blog voting, last year we had over 1,300 votes that shaped the top 50 list that is published on my vLaunchPad. Just like last year in addition to the traditional top 50 voting I’m opening it up to allow voting in specific categories as well to help distinguish certain types of blogs. To do this I have created a survey to allow you to nominate your blog or website for one of the categories that I have defined if your blog fits one or more of the categories, if it does not then don’t nominate it as all blogs on the vLaunchpad will automatically be included in the general top blog voting.

This survey is not the general voting poll for the top VMware/virtualization blogs, this survey is only to nominate your blog for certain categories if it fits. Once the nominations are collected I will open the polls for voting for the top blogs where voters will be able to rate their top 10 blogs and also vote in each of the categories.

You should only nominate your own blog/website, these nominations will be used to populate the category choices when voting opens. If your blog doesn’t fit one of these categories then do not nominate itall blogs on the vLaunchpad will automatically be included in the general top blog voting. If your blog is not currently listed on the vLaunchPad use this form to let me know. The categories that can be voted on are:

  • Best Storage Blog (Must have good percentage of posts be Storage related)
  • Best Networking Blog (Must have good percentage of  be Networking related)
  • Best Cloud Blog (Must have good percentage of  posts be Cloud related)
  • Best VDI/End-user Computing Blog (Must have good percentage of  posts be VDI/EUC related)
  • Best Scripting Blogger (Must have good percentage of  posts be Scripting related)
  • Best News & Information Website (No blogs)
  • Best podcast (Audio or video podcasts)
  • Best official VMware Blog (Blogs part of VMware’s website)
  • Best Videos used in a Blog (Must have produced a good percentage of videos)
  • Best New Blog (Blog started in 2013)
  • Best Independent Blogger (Can’t work for VMware or a hardware/software vendor)

So head on over to the survey and nominate your blog or website, the survey will be open until 2/12. Once it closes I will use the nominations to build the survey for the top blog voting which will begin shortly afterwards.

nominate

Share This: