Author's posts
Mar 18 2009
Top 10 things you must read about Virtual Machines
- 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.
Mar 05 2009
Backup Links
Consolidated Backup in Vmware Infrastructure 3
VMware Consolidated Backup Best Practices, Tips and Tricks
Backup and Recovery of Virtual Servers (VMworld 2006)
Hot Backups and Restores (VMworld 2006)
Non-disruptive Backups of Vmware Environments Using Veritas Netbackup (VMworld 2006)
Perl Backup Script for Vmware ESX 3.x
Online Backup to Windows Share using vmsnap_all and vmsnap.pl (W2K3)
VMware Consolidated Backup Technology: Today and Future (VMworld 2006)
Implementing VMware VCB
VMware Consolidated Backup Lab Manual (VMworld 2006)
Troubleshooting VMware Consolidated Backup
Configuring Tape Drives and Media Changers on ESX Server 3.x Systems
CA Arcserve Backup – Best Practices Guide for VMware ESX Server Backup
How to backup VMware ESX 3.0: File level and raw file backup
VMware Consolidated Backup: Adding an iSCSI LUN to ESX Server
Troubleshooting VMware Consolidated Backup
VMware Consolidated Backup Script Additions
Chapter download: Backing Up and Recovering Virtual Machines
VMware Consolidated Backup Best Practices
VMware Consolidated Backup: Improvements in Version 3.5
Comparison of VI3 Backup Tools
Best Practices for Architecting VCB Enabled Solutions (VMworld 2007)
Making Backup Simple – An Appliance Approach to VCB (VMworld 2007)
A Backup a Day Keeps Disasters Away (VMworld 2007)
Alternatives to VCB for VMware backup
Full backups of virtual machines and Windows VSS
VMware and VSS: Application Backup and Recovery
Five things backup administrators should know about VMware Consolidated Backup
How to Backup VMware ESX Servers
VMware Consolidated Backup ‐ Partner Integration Guide
CA ARCserve Backup r12 Virtualization Support
CA ARCserve Backup Best Practices Guide for VMware ESX Server Backup
Data Protection for VMware and Application Data in Mission Critical Environments
How to Attach Local Tape Device to VMware ESX Host
E-Guide: What You Need to Know about Virtual Machine Backup
Feb 11 2009
Top 10 things you must read about Patching and Monitoring ESX & ESXi hosts
- 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.
Jan 11 2009
Top 10 PowerShell scripts that VMware administrators must use
- 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.
Jan 08 2009
Top 10 things you must read about VMware High Availability (HA)
- 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.
Dec 08 2008
Top 10 things you must read about Processors (CPUs) and Virtualization
- 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.
Dec 08 2008
Top 10 things you should read about VMware’s VMotion technology
- VMware VMotion and CPU Compatibility – A white paper from VMware that explains how VMotion works, the differences between CPU types and features, what CPU masks are and how to use them and what Enhanced VMotion is.
- Understanding CPU Compatibility Constraints for VMotion (VMworld 2007 – free registration required) – A VMworld 2007 presentation that explains the complexities behind CPU constraints with VMotion, problematic CPU features, compatibility groups of CPUs, relaxation of restraints and hardware support for enhanced VMotion compatibility.
- VMotion CPU Compatibility for Intel & AMD processors and how to override CPU masks due to CPU mismatch – KB Article 1991, KB Article 1992 & KB Article 1993 – Three VMware knowledgebase articles that cover specific CPU compatibility information for Intel and AMD processors and how to override CPU masks due to CPU mismatch within CPU brands.
- How to obtain, configure and use VMotion and how VMotion works – An article from Andrew Kutz that covers how to license VMotion, how to configure and use it and the technical details behind how it works.
- VMotion Compatibility – An article from Scott Lowe that covers CPU masks and how to understand them and set them properly to override CPU compatibility constraints.
- How to setup and use VMotion: A Screencast – A screencast from Andrew Kutz that shows how to setup and use VMotion. It covers how to configure it, potential gotchas and how to perform a VMotion migration.
- What is Enhanced VMotion Compatibility anyway? – An article from Dave Lawrence that explains the technical details about CPUID instructions and how Enhanced VMotion Compatibility helps to solve the problem of using incompatible CPUs with VMotion.
- Overview of VMotion migration compatibility error messages – A VMware knowledgebase article that covers the many possible error messages that may be experienced with VMotion and how to resolve them.
- Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support – A VMware knowledgebase article that covers the Intel and AMD processors that are supported by Enhanced VMotion Compatibility.
- Live Migration with AMD-V Extended Migration Technology – A white paper from AMD that covers the challenges and technical details of using VMotion across incompatible CPUs and how CPUID instructions are used.
Dec 08 2008
Top 10 things you should read about Virtualization and Compliance
- How Server Virtualization Impacts Data Security and PCI Compliance – A great webinar that handles the topic of how server virtualization impacts PCI compliance. This is often a misunderstood area as virtualization is not specifically covered in the PCI specification.
- How to Achieve Security and Satisfy Compliance – A VMworld 2007 presentation (free registration required) that covers ESX security practices and recommendations. Additionally it covers compliance requirements and how to asses your compliance readiness.
- Achieving Compliance in a Virtualized Environment – A white paper from VMware that discusses how to achieve compliance in a virtualized environment and how virtualization impacts compliance.
- Best Practices for Surviving Regulatory Compliance (VMworld 2007) – A VMworld 2007 presentation (free registration required) that covers PCI compliance and how it impacts VMware Virtual Infrastructure.
- Reducing the Scope of Your PCI Audit: Innovative Network Segmentation Using Host Intrusion Defense – A presentation (free registration required) from Third Brigade that covers how to segment your network to reduce the scope of your PCI audits.
- Staying PCI Compliant in Virtual and Physical Environments – A webcast from Tripwire that covers the challenges of virtualization for security and PCI compliance and best practices for proving control in a virtualized environment.
- Insights from an Auditor: Ensuring a Successful PCI Audit – A webcast from Tripwire that talks about common pitfalls of meeting PCI requirements and how to develop a strategy for assessing your payment card environment.
- Surviving Regulatory Compliance in the Virtual Infrastructure – A VMworld 2006 presentation on compliance rules for SOX, implications for VMware implementations and how to overcome security and audit issues.
- PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) – The official documentation of the PCI standard. Contains the documentation of the latest PCI specification and a summary of changes between versions of the specifications.
- VMware Compliance Center – VMware’s compliance portal that contains links to documents that are compliance related.
