Eric Siebert

Author's posts

Oct 17 2012

Understanding CPU & Memory Management in vSphere

cpumemory

CPU & memory resources are two resources that are not fully understood in vSphere, and they are two resources that are often wasted, as well. In this post we’ll take a look at CPU & memory resources in vSphere to help you better understand them and provide some tips for properly managing them.

Let’s first take a look at the CPU resource. Virtual machines can be assigned up to 64 virtual CPUs in vSphere 5.1. The amount you can assign to a VM, of course, depends on the total amount a host has available. This number is determined by the number of physical CPUs (sockets), the number of cores that a physical CPU has, and whether hyper-threading technology is supported on the CPU. For example, my ML110G6 server has a single physical CPU that is quad-core, but it also has hyper-threading technology. So, the total CPUs seen by vSphere is 8 (1 x 4 x 2). Unlike memory, where you can assign more virtual RAM to a VM then you have physically in a host, you can’t do this type of over-provisioning with CPU resources.

Most VMs will be fine with one vCPU. Start with one, in most cases, and add more, if needed. The applications and workloads running inside the VM will dictate whether you need additional vCPUs or not. The exception here is if you have an application (i.e. Exchange, transactional database, etc.) that you know will have a heavy workload and need more than one vCPU. One word of advice, though, on changing from a single CPU to multiple CPU’s with Microsoft Windows: previous versions of Windows had separate kernel HAL’s that were used depending on whether the server had a single CPU or multiple CPUs (vSMP). These kernels were optimized for each configuration to improve performance.  So, if you made a change in the hardware once Windows was already installed, you had to change the kernel type inside of Windows, which was a pain in the butt. Microsoft did away with that requirement some time ago with the Windows Server 2008 release, and now there is only one kernel regardless of the number of CPUs that are assigned to a server. You can read more about this change here. So, if you are running an older Windows OS, like Server 2000 or 2003, you still need to change the kernel type if you go from single to multiple CPUs or vice versa.

So, why not just give VMs lots of CPUs, and let them use what they need? CPU usage is not like memory usage, which often utilizes all the memory assigned to it for things like pre-fetching. The real problem with assigning too many vCPUs to a VM is scheduling.  Unlike memory, which is directly allocated to VMs and is not shared (except for TPS), CPU resources are shared and must wait in a line to be scheduled  and processed by the hypervisor which finds a free physical CPU/core to handle each request. Handling VMs with a single vCPU is pretty easy: just find a single open CPU/core and hand it over to the VM. With multiple vCPU’s it becomes more difficult, as you have to find several available CPUs/cores to handle requests. This is called co-scheduling, and throughout the years, VMware has changed how they handle co-scheduling to make it a bit more flexible and relaxed. You can read more about how vSphere handles co-scheduling in this VMware white paper.

When it comes to memory, assigning too much is not a good thing and there are several reasons for that. The first reason is that the OS and applications tend to use all available memory for things like caching that consume extra available memory. All this extra memory usage takes away physical host memory from other VMs. It also makes the hypervisors job of managing memory conservation, via features like TPS and ballooning, more difficult.  Another thing that happens with memory is when you assign memory to a VM and power it on; you are also consuming additional disk space. The hypervisor creates a virtual swap (vswp) file in the home directory of the VM equal in size to the amount of memory assigned to a VM (minus any memory reservations). The reason this happens is to support vSphere’s ability to over-commit memory to VMs and assign them more than a host is physically capable of supporting. Once a host ‘s physical memory is exhausted, it starts uses the vswp files to make up for this resource shortage, which slows down performance and puts more stress on the storage array.

So, if you assign 8GB of memory to a VM, once it is powered on, an 8GB vswp file will be created.  If you have 100 VMs with 8GB of memory each, that’s 800GB of disk space that you lose from your vSphere datastores. This can chew up a lot of disk space, so limiting the amount of memory that you assign to VMs will also limit the size of the vswp files that get created.

Therefore, the secret to a healthy vSphere environment is to “right-size” VMs.  This means only assigning them the resources they need to support their workloads, and not wasting resources. Virtual environments share resources, so you can’t use mindsets from physical environments where having too much memory or CPUs is no big deal. How do you know what is the right size is? In most cases you won’t know, but you can get a fairly good idea of a VM’s resource requirements by combining the typical amount that the guest OS needs with the resource requirements for the applications that you are running on it. You should start by estimating the amount.  Then the key is to monitor performance to determine what resources a VM is using and what resources it is not using. vCenter Server isn’t really helpful for this as it doesn’t really do reporting. So, using 3rd party tools can make this much easier. I’ve always been impressed by the dashboards that SolarWinds has in their VMware monitoring tool, Virtualization Manager. These dashboards can show you, at a glance, which VMs are under-sized and which are over-sized. Their VM Sprawl dashboard can make it really easy to right-size all the VMs in your environment so you can reallocate resources from VMs that don’t need them to VMs that do.

solarwinds1

Another benefit that Virtualization Manager provides is that you can spot idle and zombie VMs that also suck away resources from your environment and need to be dealt with.

So, effectively managing your CPU and memory resources is really a two-step process. First, don’t go overboard with resources when creating new VMs. Try and be a bit conservative to start out.  Then, monitor your environment continually with a product like SolarWinds Virtualization Manager so you can see the actual VM resource needs. The beauty of virtualization is that it makes it really easy to add or remove resources from a virtual machine. If you want to experience the maximum benefit that virtualization provides and get the most cost savings from it, right-sizing is the key to achieving that.

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Oct 10 2012

Storage vMotion Links

vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 7: Storage vMotion (CormacHogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 storage vMotion parallel disk migrations (Frank Denneman)
Video: vSphere4 Unleashed: 06 – Storage vMotion (Hypervisor)
The Design and Evolution of Live Storage Migration in VMware ESX (VMware Technical Paper)
Under the Covers with Storage vMotion (VMware Uptime Blog)
Enhanced Storage vMotion and vSphere (YouTube)

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Oct 06 2012

Top 10 things you must read about vSphere 5.1

There has been so many documents, white papers, videos and blog posts posted about the vSphere 5.1 release that it’s hard to keep up with them all. I have at least 250 links gathered in my vSphere 5.1 Link-o-rama and it is still growing. With so many links it’s easy to miss some of the really good ones so I thought I would put together a top 10 list that highlights the ones that you don’t want to miss.

top10list-crop

1 – VMware’s What’s new in vSphere 5.1 white paper series

VMware released a series of technical white papers that cover the new features and enhancements in vSphere 5.1 in a lot more detail than their standard one page overview document that covers them at a high level. These white papers focus on different areas to highlight in-depth what the key changes are in vSphere 5.1 in specific areas that you should know about. This series is a good read so make a pot of coffee or crack open a beer and learn all about the goodness that exists in vSphere 5.1.

2 – Cormac Hogan’s 10-part What’s New in Storage with vSphere 5.1 series

If you don’t know Cormac Hogan, you should, he’s a senior technical marketing architect at VMware and his focus is on storage which he knows a lot about. He produces a lot of great content for VMware on the vSphere Blog and recently started his own personal blog as well which you should definitely bookmark. With each new release of vSphere Cormac does a What’s New series focused on storage and he’s back at it again with vSphere 5.1 which has a number of new storage features and enhancements. By the time you’ve finished reading through his 10 blog posts on storage you’ll probably know as much about storage in vSphere 5.1 as Cormac, well probably not but you’ll still learn a lot.

3 – Derek Seaman’s 13-part series on installing vCenter Server 5.1

Remember back in the good ole days of VirtualCenter 2.5 when everything was all simple, easy and straightforward? Well over time vCenter Server has gotten more and more complicated and installing and configuring it has become no simple task anymore. With so many pieces and parts to vCenter Server now like the Web interface, Update Manager, Single Sign-On, databases, certificates, etc, installing vCenter Server in 5.1 has become complex and occasionally frustrating. Well Derek Seaman has made it easy for you with his epic 13-part mini-series (and counting?) on installing vCenter Server 5.1. This series will guide you through all the different steps of installing vCenter Server and it’s various components and help you avoid any gotchas that you might encounter. vCenter Server should be the first thing you install or upgrade in your environment so be sure and give these a read.

4 – Kendrick Coleman’s video tutorial series on the vCenter Server appliance and the new vSphere Web Client interface

Kendrick Coleman has been a busy boy recording a nice video tutorial series of 11 videos that will get you familiar with deploying the vCenter Server appliance and also familiar with how to perform various tasks using the new vSphere web client interface. Seeing rather than reading can make it easier to learn which is one reason that TrainSignal has become so popular and Kendrick delivers the good with over 2 hours of videos to help make that transition to the new web client interface an easier one. So make yourself a big bowl of popcorn and enjoy these videos on vSphere 5.1 as Kendrick makes a play to win himself a vEmmy award.

5 – Stephen Foskett’s Storage Changes in vSphere 5.1 post

You can never get too much information on storage and Stephen Foskett, the man behind Tech Field Day, puts his own unique spin on the storage changes that are in vSphere 5.1. This has become a tradition for Stephen as he does this with each vSphere release and he provides a lot of great information and insight from his years of experience working with storage. Stephen often seems to come up with those little nuggets of information about storage and vSphere that you won’t find anywhere else so be sure and check him out and I guarantee you’ll walk away learning something new.

6 – VMware’s VMware vSphere Web Client Video Support Series

The days of our beloved (at least for Windows users) vSphere Client are numbered and the future is with the new vSphere Web Client. Making the jump to this new interface can be challenging so luckily VMware has put together a whole video series to show you how to perform various tasks using the new web UI. While us Windows users may put this off and cling to our vSphere Client as long as possible, Linux and Mac fans will rejoice as they can finally natively manage vSphere without having to install Windows. The sooner you get started with the new web UI the better so don’t put it off as you’ll likely not see the vSphere Client in the next major vSphere release.

7 – Vladan Seget’s posts on vSphere Data Protection

vSphere Data Protection (vDP) is a new product introduced with vSphere 5.1 that is based on Avamar from VMware that replaces vSphere Data Recovery (vDR) that was part of the prior vSphere releases. Being a new product it can be a challenge to learn it and understand how it works. Well Vladan who blogs from the tropical beaches of Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean has made it easier for you with a series of posts and videos that will help you get started and comfortable with it. Once you’ve  kicked the tires with vDP and seen how it works you might find yourself desiring a better backup product like Veeam Backup & Replication instead, but hey at least you gave vDP a shot and Vladan is your man to guide you through it.

8 – Chris Wahl’s New 5.1 Distributed Switch Features

A lot of focus is given to storage in each vSphere release but networking sees it’s fair share of new features and enhancements as well. Chris Wahl has done a series of nice posts that cover a lot of the networking stuff that is new in vSphere 5.1. Networking in vSphere can quickly get overwhelming with all those complicated features, layers, packets, ports, switches and acronyms so reading through these posts might make it easier to digest. Even if you’re not a networking person it’s still good to know something about it so be sure and give them a read. For some  information on VXLAN be sure and read Duncan’s posts as well, but heck you probably already have since everyone reads Duncan’s blog.

9 – vSphere 5 Licensing, Pricing & Packaging

Another year, another licensing change. VMware’s infamous vTax went over as well as a fart in a spacesuit so VMware has had yet enough licensing change with vSphere 5.1. In addition they have changed feature availability in editions, introduced new cloud suites, eliminated per VM pricing and much more. So what you know about VMware’s licensing has probably all changed so it’s time to study up on it again and figure it all out. Be sure and hurry up and learn it before it all changes again.

10 – RTFM

I shouldn’t have to tell you this but I will, reading the fricking manuals can really be helpful. I know most of us don’t like to read manuals and just want to dive into playing with the products but VMware actually makes some really good documentation that is more than just your typical step-by-step instructions. I highly encourage you to checkout the separate documentation on Networking, Storage, Security, Availability, Resource Management and Performance. These are great guides for learning about the technology and getting some deep dive information on it. VMware even makes it easier for you by putting it in multiple formats such as html, pdf, epub and mobi so you can download it to your device of choice and carry it around with you. Maybe some day they’ll even put it in audio book format so you can listen to James Earl Jones tell you how to configure Storage I/O Control while driving to work, how cool would that be.

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So there you have it, the top 10 things you should read about vSphere 5.1, I’m sure I missed some other great ones as well so feel free to shout out in the comments some additional links that you feel people must read. Also be sure and bookmark my vSphere 5.1 Link-o-rama, new links are added daily and you will find almost everything you need there to get you going with vSphere 5.1.

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Sep 23 2012

What is SAHF and LAHF and why do I need it to install vSphere 5.1?

Happened to look over the ESXi 5.1 documentation today (yeah, yeah, normally I just install and don’t RTFM) and noticed this in the Hardware Requirements section:

  • ESXi 5.1 will install and run only on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs
  • ESXi 5.1 requires a host machine with at least two cores
  • ESXi 5.1 supports only LAHF and SAHF CPU instructions
  • ESXi 5.1 requires the NX/XD bit to be enabled for the CPU in the BIOS

Most of the requirements are fairly straightforward, the 64-bit CPU requirement has been there since vSphere 4 was introduced, but many people probably don’t know what NX/XD & LAHF/SAHF are. The NX/XD bit is a CPU feature called Never eXecute, hence the NX name. What the NX bit does is enable the ability to mark certain areas of memory as non-executable with a flag. When this happens the processor will then refuse to execute any code that resides in those areas of memory. Any attempt to execute code from a page that is marked as no execute will result in a memory access violation. This feature adds a layer of security to a computer by providing a protected area against malicious code such as viruses and buffer overflow attacks.

AMD first added the NX bit feature to their AMD64 processor line starting with the Opteron processor starting in 2003. So you may be wondering about the XD part, well that is simply Intel’s name for the same feature which they refer to as eXecute Disable. Intel introduced support for the XD bit shortly after AMD with their Pentium 4 Prescott processor in 2004. Both the NX bit and the XD bit have the exact same functionality just different names so you will often see it as referred to as NX/XD. This feature has been standard on most processors for years now so almost every server built since 2006 should have it. Support for NX/XD is typically enabled or disabled in the server BIOS and is typically found under Processor options and labeled as something like “Execute Disable Bit”, “NX Technology” or “XD Support”.

Many virtualization admins know what NX/XD is but LAHF & SAHF CPU instructions are a processor function that you have probably never heard of. LAHF stands for Load AH from Flags and SAHF stands for Store AH into Flags. LAHF & SAHF are used to load and store instructions for certain status flags. Instructions are basic commands composed of one or more symbols that that are passed to a CPU as input. These instructions related to LAHF & SAHF are used for virtualization and floating-point condition handling. You really don’t need to understand how they work as they are related to the core CPU architecture but if you want to understand them better you can read more about them here.

Support for LAHF and SAHF instructions appeared shortly after NX/XD was introduced. AMD introduced support for the instructions with their Athlon 64, Opteron and Turion 64 revision D processors in March 2005 and Intel introduced support for the instructions with the Pentium 4 G1 stepping in December 2005. So again most most servers built after 2006 should have CPUs that support LAHF/SAHF. Similar to NX/XD which can be enabled or disabled in the server BIOS, support for LAHF/SAHF is typically tied into the Virtualization Technology (VT) option in a server BIOS which is often referred to Intel VT or AMD-V which is their respective support for virtualization CPU technology. The option to enable this on a HP Proliant BIOS is shown below:

bios1

So how do you know if your server’s CPUs support NX/XD & LAHF/SAHF? As I said before if you’ve purchased a server in the last 5 or so years, it most likely will support it. If it doesn’t support it the ESXi installer will warn you when you install it as shown below:

bios31

Interesting enough though it will still let you install it despite not having the required CPU features. Prior versions of vSphere used to give you an error saying your CPU doesn’t support Long Mode and wouldn’t let you install it. If you do get the error above the first thing to check in that case is if you have those options enabled in the BIOS, if you don’t see those options in the BIOS then your CPU may not support them. You can check your specific CPU’s specifications on Intel’s or AMD‘s websites. You can also check VMware’s Hardware Compatibility List but be aware that there are many processor types/server models not on the HCL that will still work despite not being on the list, they just are not officially supported.

Another way to know if your CPU’s support the required features is to use VMware’s CPU Identification Utility which is a small little ISO that you can boot your host from and it will check the CPU hardware to see if it will support vSphere. I’ve mounted it using the iLO management on server and have also mounted it to a VM’s CD-ROM and booted from it and ran it. Since the CPU hardware is not emulated it can see what type of physical CPU the host is using and what features it supports. The output of the CPU ID tool is shown below, this server fully support all the required CPU features for vSphere:

bios21

So there you have it, now you know more about NX/XD & LAHF/SAHF than you probably wanted to know but at least you have an understanding of what they are when you read about the CPU requirements in the vSphere documentation. You probably won’t find any modern servers that don’t support it but often times our data centers become server graveyards and contain a lot of older hardware that keeps getting re-used until they finally die which may not support it. So knowing what to look for when it comes to CPU features is good to know.

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Sep 17 2012

VMware configuration maximums from 1.0 to 5.1

VMware has really grown in scalability from the early days of ESX 1.0 with each new release of vSphere. I put together this table on how the configuration maximums have increased over the years so you can see just how much it scales over the years. VMware has published there Configuration Maximums documentation with each release starting with VI3 which you should be familiar with especially if you are trying to get a certification. I pieced together the earlier versions from the installation documentation for each release, there isn’t much info available on ESX 1.0 so if you know anything please fill in the blanks for me. Notice how the VM virtual disk size of 2TB has never changed, this is to due file system limitations that VMware has not yet been able to overcome. With their new Virtual Volumes architecture that limit may finally be gone. Also note on the earlier versions the documentation did not state a 2TB virtual disk limit although I’m almost positive it existed, the documentation stated “9TB per virtual disk”, not sure why though.

Configuration Maximums for VMware ESX/vSphere

VMware release:1.01.52.02.53.03.54.04.15.05.15.56.0
vCPUs per VM112244883264128
RAM per VM2GB3.6GB3.6GB3.6GB16GB64GB255GB255GB1TB1TB4TB
NICs per VM?4444410101010
VM Virtual Disk????2TB2TB2TB2TB2TB2TB62TB
VMFS Volume?64TB64TB64TB64TB64TB64TB64TB64TB64TB
pCPU per host?81616323264160160160320
vCPU per host?648080128128512512204820484096
RAM per host?64GB64GB64GB64GB256GB1TB1TB2TB2TB4TB
pNICs per host?161616323232323232

In addition hears a diagram from VMware that depicts the configuration maximums in a slightly different manner:

vsphere-max

VMware Configuration Maximum Published Documents:

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Sep 10 2012

vSphere 5.1 Link-O-Rama

Your complete guide to all the essential vSphere 5.1 links. Bookmark this page and keep checking back as it will grow as new links are added.

What’s New Links

What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Storage (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Performance (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Platform (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Networking (Technical Paper)
What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – VMware vCenter Server (Technical Paper)

Documentation Links

VMware vSphere Documentation
VMware vSphere 5.1 Release Notes
Configuration Maximums for VMware vSphere 5.1

Download Links

Download vSphere 5.1
ESXi 5.1.0 Installable
vCenter Server 5.1.0 and modules
vSphere Data Protection 5.1.0
vSphere Replication 5.1.0
vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.0
vCenter Orchestrator Appliance 5.1.0
vCloud Networking and Security 5.1.0
vSphere Management Assistant 5.1 (vMA)
vShield Zones for vSphere 5.1
HP Custom Image for ESXi 5.1.0 GA Install CD
vSphere PowerCLI 5.1
vSphere 5.1 Virtual Disk Development Kit
vSphere CLI 5.1

AutoDeploy Links

VMware vSphere 5.1 iPXE problems with AutoDeploy (Gabe’s Virtual World)
Understanding vSphere Auto Deploy Stateless Caching and Stateful Installs (KB Article)
Auto Deploy Stateless Caching Provisioning (Punching Clouds)
vSphere 5.1 Auto Deploy Overview Videos (VMware TV Video)
vSphere 5.1 – Auto Deploy Stateless Caching and Stateful Installs (VMware vSphere Blog)

ESXi Links

ESXi 5.1 Free with no vRAM limit but physical RAM limit of 32Gb (ESX Virtualization)
Power and maintenance operations in ESXi 5.1 with esxcli (Juanma’s Blog)
Host warning for ESXi Shell and SSH appear on a ESXi 5.1 host (KB Article)
ESXi 5.1 Host Security Improvements (Punching Clouds)
VMware vSphere 5.1 Hypervisor (Free – ESXi 5.1) Limitations (TechHead)
Enabling 64-bit VMs on nested ESXi 5.1 (Virtualization Infrastructure Tips)
Having Difficulties Enabling Nested ESXi in vSphere 5.1? (Virtually Ghetto)
2gbsparse Disk Format No Longer Working On ESXi 5.1 (Virtually Ghetto)
Automating ESXi 5.1 Kickstart Tips & Tricks (Virtually Ghetto)
vSphere 5.1 – New ESXiShellInteractiveTimeOut (VMware vSphere Blog)
vSphere 5.1 – Full Admin Support for Named User Accounts (VMware vSphere Blog)
Joining vSphere Hosts to Active Directory (VMware vSphere Blog)
Identifying Non-Default Advanced & Kernel Settings Using ESXCLI 5.1 (VMware vSphere Blog)
What’s New In ESXCLI 5.1 (VMware vSphere Blog)

General Links

VMware vSphere: What’s New [V 5.1] (Free VMware eLearning Course)
Read the vSphere 5.1 Release Notes!! (Technodrone)
New in vSphere 5.1 support for five node failover clusters (The Lowercase W)
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V compared to VMware vSphere 5.1 (UP2V)

HA & DRS

vSphere 5.1 DRS advanced option LimitVMsPerESXHost (Frank Denneman)
Retaining resource pools when disabling VMware DRS clusters (KB Article)
Strange DRS behavior during vSphere 5.1 upgrade (Gabe’s Virtual World)
What’s new in vSphere 5.1 for High Availability (Yellow Bricks)
Limit the amount of eggs in a single basket through vSphere 5.1 DRS (Yellow Bricks)

Installing & Upgrading

Upgrade vCenter Server 5.x to vCenter Server 5.1 (Default Reasoning)
Upgrading from ESXi 5.x to ESXi 5.1 using VMware Update Manager (Default Reasoning)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 1 (SSO Service) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 2 (Create vCenter SSL Certificate) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 3 (Install SSO Service SSL Certificate) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 4 (Install Inventory Service) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 5 (Install Inventory Service SSL Certificate) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 6 (Create vCenter and VUM Databases) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 7 (Install vCenter Server) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 8 (Install Web Client) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 9 (Optional SSO Configuration) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 10 (Create VUM DSN) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 11 (Install VUM) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 12 (VUM SSL Configuration) (Derek Seaman)
VMware vCenter 5.1 Installation: Part 13 (VUM Configuration) (Derek Seaman)
ESXi Free – how to upgrade to ESXi 5.1 (ESX Virtualization)
Tips for upgrading to VMware vCenter 5.1 (Ivo Beerens)
Methods of installing ESXi 5.1 (KB Article)
Methods of upgrading to ESXi 5.1 (KB Article)
Installing or upgrading to ESXi 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Overview of upgrading from vCenter Server 5.0 to vCenter Server 5.1 (KB Article)
Methods of Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 (KB Article)
Methods of installing vCenter Server 5.1 (KB Article)
Installing vCenter Server 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Upgrading vCenter Server, ESX/ESXi hosts, and vShield Edge Appliances for vCloud Director 5.1 (KB Article)
Installing ESXi 5.1 using the Interactive Installation method (KBTV Video)
Installing VMware vCenter Server 5.1 using the Simple Install method (KBTV Video)
Installing ESXi 5.x in VMware Workstation (KB Article/Video)
vSphere 5.1 Generally Available – Important Upgrade Considerations (Long White Virtual Clouds)
ESXi 5.1 Upgrade fails with the error: Cannot execute upgrade script on host (Viktorious.nl)
A Pretty Cool Method of Upgrading to ESXi 5.1 (Virtually Ghetto)
How to update your (free / whitebox) ESXi server to ESXi 5.1 (VMware Front Experience)
What is SAHF and LAHF and why do I need it to install vSphere 5.1? (vSphere-land)
Tips for a Successful vCenter 5.0 to 5.1 Upgrade (Wahl Network)

Licensing Links

VMware vCloud Suite Upgrade Notes (Clearpath’s Blog)
Behind vRAM – What’s VMware’s Deepest Fear? (Double Cloud)
VMware turns attention to small businesses with vSphere 5.1 Essentials Plus (Infoworld)
vRAM eliminated on both vSphere 5.0 and 5.1 (vCritical)
Upgrade paths from vSphere editions to VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 (KB Article)
vCloud Suite per CPU licensing versus vCD/SRM/vCOPS per VM licensing (Viktorious.nl)
Killing vRAM is a backward step (Vinf.net)
Compare vSphere 5 Editions (VMware)
vCloud Suite Licensing Guide (VMware)
vSphere 5 Licensing, Pricing and Packaging (VMware)

Networking Links

vSphere 5.1 – New Features and Enhancements in Networking (ESX Virtualization)
VMware vSphere 5.1 Networking Backup and Restore Video (ESX Virtualization)
Migrate to a new vCenter server with the vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) enabled in vSphere 5.1 (Ivobeerens.nl)
Enabling vSphere Distributed Switch health check in the vSphere Web Client (KB Article)
Understanding vSphere 5.1 network rollback and recovery (KB Article)
Enabling or disabling LACP on an Uplink Port Group using the vSphere Web Client (KB Article)
The impact of the VXLAN overlay networks on netqueue behavior (KB Article)
Exporting/importing/restoring Distributed Switch configs using vSphere Web client (KB Article)
vCloud Director 5.1 VXLAN Configuration (Punching Clouds)
ESXi 5.1 Network Health Check with Jumbo Frames (Rickard Nobel)
ESXi 5.1 Network Health Check VLANs (Rickard Nobel)
ESXi 5.1 and BPDU Guard (Rickard Nobel)
LACP and ESXi 5.1 (Rickard Nobel)
Distributed Virtual Switch 5.1 Health Check for VLAN configuration issues (Shogan.tech)
Single Root IO Virtualization (SR-IOV) Finally in vSphere 5.1 (Stretch Cloud)
DVMirror v2 aka Port Mirroring – Closing the competition with Cisco N1KV (Stretch Cloud)
vESXi with 10Gb Ethernet Using VMXNET3 – Yes You Can!! (Technodrone)
What’s New in vSphere 5.1 – Networking (VMware vSphere Blog)
What’s New in VMware vCloud Networking and Security 5.1 (VMware vSphere Blog)
VXLAN Performance Evaluation on VMware vSphere 5.1 (VMware Technical Paper)
VMware vSphere 5.1 – Networking Rollback and Recovery (VMware TV Video)
VMware vSphere 5.1 – Network Config Backup and Restore (VMware TV Video)
New 5.1 Distributed Switch Features Part 1 – Network Health Check (Wahl Network)
New 5.1 Distributed Switch Features Part 2 – Configuration Backups and Rollbacks (Wahl Network)
New 5.1 Distributed Switch Features Part 3 – Port Mirror and NetFlow Enhancements (Wahl Network)
New 5.1 Distributed Switch Features Part 4 – LACP, SR-IOV, Elastic Ports, and More (Wahl Network)
Using LACP with a vSphere Distributed Switch 5.1 (Wahl Network)
vSphere 5.1 networking enhancements (Yellow Bricks)

Performance

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 5.1 (VMware Technical Paper)

Scripting Links

Update a remote server to ESXi 5.1 (LucD Notes)
Automating ESXi 5.1 Kickstart Tips & Tricks (Virtually Ghetto)
Nested Virtualization APIs For vSphere & vCloud Director 5.1 (Virtually Ghetto)
PowerCLI 5.1 – What’s New ? (VMware PowerCLI Blog)
What’s new in PowerCLI 5.1-Datastore Clusters (VMware PowerCLI Blog)
“vMotion without shared storage” API (VMware vSphere Blog)

SRM 5.1/vSphere Replication

VMware SRM 5.1 and vSphere Replication – New release – 64bit process, Application Quiescence (ESX Virtualization)
SRM 5.1 and vSphere Replication as a Standalone Feature (VMware vSphere Blog)
Introduction to VMware vSphere Replication (VMware Technical Paper)
VMware vSphere 5.1 – Replication Recovery (VMware TV Video)
VMware vSphere 5.1 – Replication Protection (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Storage Replication – Part 1 (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Storage Replication – Part 2 (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Concepts/Architecture (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Installation (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Site Pairing (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Inventory Mapping (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Protection Groups (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Creating a Recovery Plan (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Testing a Recovery Plan (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Failover (VMware TV Video)
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: Failback (VMware TV Video)
Back to Basics: Install, configure and use vSphere Replication (Yellow Bricks)
Can I protect my vCenter Server with vSphere Replication? (Yellow Bricks)

Storage Links

vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 1: VMFS-5 (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 2: SE Sparse Disks (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 3: vCloud Director (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 4: All Paths Down (APD) (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 5: Storage Protocols (Cormac Hogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 6: IODM & SSD Monitoring (CormacHogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 7: Storage vMotion (CormacHogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 8: Storage I/O Control (CormacHogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 9: Storage DRS (CormacHogan.com)
vSphere 5.1 Storage Enhancements – Part 10: 5 Node MSCS Support (CormacHogan.com)
Monitoring Storage I/O Control activity with new vSphere 5.1 counters (CormacHogan.com)
Storage DRS datastore correlation detector (Frank Denneman)
vSphere 5.1 storage vMotion parallel disk migrations (Frank Denneman)
Storage DRS datastore cluster default affinity rule (Frank Denneman)
VM Storage Profiles and Storage DRS – Part 1 (Frank Denneman)
VM Storage Profiles and Storage DRS – Part 2 – Distributed VMs (Frank Denneman)
vSphere 5.1 Storage DRS load balancing and SIOC threshold enhancements (Frank Denneman)
vSphere 5.1 Storage DRS Multi-VM provisioning improvement (Frank Denneman)
Booting ESXi with Software FCoE (KB Article)
iSCSI and Jumbo Frames configuration on ESX/ESXi (KB Article)
vSphere 5.1 vCenter Virtual Appliance and vSphere Web Client Video Tutorial Series (Kendrick Coleman)
Space-Efficient Sparse Virtual Disks and VMware View (MyVirtualCloud.net)
vSphere 5.1 storage enhancements and future vision (Ray On Storage)
Storage Changes in VMware vSphere 5.1 (Stephen Foskett)
VMware Communities Roundtable Podcast #203 – What’s New in vSphere 5.1 Storage (VMTN – MP3 Recording)
vSphere 5.1 New Storage Features (VMware vSphere Blog)
Storage I/O Performance on VMware vSphere 5.1 over 16 Gigabit Fibre Channel (VMware Technical Paper)
vSphere 5.1 All Paths Down (APD) enhancements (Yellow Bricks)

vCenter Server Links

Tweaking Java.exe memory usage on vCenter Server 5.1 (Default Reasoning)
vSphere 5.1 and New VMware Enhanced vMotion (ESX Virtualization)
vSphere 5.1 vMotion deepdive (Frank Denneman)
Where is my new vMotion functionality? (Frank Denneman)
What about the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) version 5.1? (Ivobeerens.nl)
VCSA 5.1- Deployment and upgrade (Juanma’s Blog)
vCenter Server 5.1 start up may take longer than previous versions (KB Article)
vCenter Server Services hang on startup after upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 (KB Article)
Using the new Tag features of vSphere 5.1 (mwpreston.net)
Enhanced vMotion / X-vMotion / shared nothing vMotion live demo (Shogan.tech)
VMware Converter 5 not compatible with vSphere 5.1? (Viktorious.nl)
Implementing CA signed SSL certificates with vSphere 5.1 (VMware Support Insider)
VMware vCenter Server 5.1 Database Performance Improvements and Best Practices for Large-Scale Environments (VMware Technical Paper)
VMware vSphere 5.1 vMotion Architecture, Performance and Best Practices (VMware Technical Paper)
Command-Line Installation and Upgrade of VMware vCenter Server 5.1 (VMware Technical Paper)
vMotion without shared storage requirement, does it have a name? (VMware vSphere Blog)
vMotion enhancement in vSphere 5.1 (Yellow Bricks)

vCenter Server Single Sign-On

Conceptual Deep Dive in VMware vCenter Single Sign On (DoubleCloud)
Adding AD authentication to VMware SSO 5.1 (Gabe’s Virtual World)
vSphere 5.1 Gotcha with Single Sign On (SSO) (Long White Virtual Clouds)
Comparing behaviour of vCenter Single Sign On with earlier versions of vCenter Server (KB Article)
vCenter Single Sign On FAQ (KB Article)
Installing vCenter Single Sign On in a multisite deployment (KB Article)
Setting up Apache load balancing software with vCenter Single Sign On (KB Article)
Configuring vCenter Single Sign On for high availability (KB Article)
Troubleshooting Single Sign On (SSO) issues in vCenter Server 5.1 (KB Article)
Troubleshooting Single Sign On on a Windows Installation (KB Article)
Understanding and troubleshooting vCenter Single Sign-On users, groups, and login qualifications (KB Article)
Backup and restore the vCenter Single Sign On (SSO) configuration (KB Article)
VMware vCenter 5.1 SSO Installation Error 29133: Administrator login Error (Valco Labs)
VMware vSphere 5.1 new vCenter architecture & Single Sign on (Virtualization Team)
vCenter SSO 5.1 Install Issues (VMwise)
vCenter SSO Config + Multiple Domains (VMwise)
vCenter SSO + Active Directory (VMwise)
How vCenter Single Sign On Affects vCenter Server Installation and Upgrades (vSphere 5.1 Docs)
How vCenter Single Sign On Deployment Scenarios Affect Log In Behavior (vSphere 5.1 Docs)
vSphere Inventory Searching and Tagging (VMware vSphere Blog)
vCenter Single Sign-On Part 1: what is vCenter Single Sign-On? (VMware vSphere Blog)
vCenter Single Sign On: Understanding the Administrators role (VMwareTechPubs Video)
vCenter Single Sign On: Managing Users (VMwareTechPubs Video)
vCenter Single Sign On in the vSphere Web Client (VMwareTechPubs Video)

vCloud Director 5.1

The requested operation will exceed the VDC’s storage quota (Cormac Hogan)
vCloud Director 5.1 & Storage Profiles (Cormac Hogan)
vCloud Director 5.1 & Storage DRS (Cormac Hogan)
vCloud Director 5.1 released – what’s new (ESX Virtualization)
vCloud Connector 5.1 – What’s new? (ESX Virtualization)
VMware vCloud 5.1 Networking for dummies (Gabe’s Virtual World)
VMware vCloud 5.1 Networking for dummies part 2 (Gabe’s Virtual World)
VMware vCloud 5.1 Networking for dummies part 3 (Gabe’s Virtual World)
Making a vCloud multi VM vApp template (Gabe’s Virtual World)
Design Considerations for vShield Edge Gateway HA feature in vCloud 5.1 (Punching Clouds)
Network port requirements for vCloud Director 5.1 (KB Article)
Installing vCloud Director 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Upgrading to vCloud Director 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Installing and configuring a vCloud Director 5.1 database (KB Article)
Supported web browsers in vCloud Director 5.1 (KB Article)
Supported guest operating systems in vCloud Director 5.1 (KB Article)
Upgrading From vCloud Director 1.5 to 5.1 (Shiplett.org)
vCloud Director 5.1 Introduces “Open in vSphere Web Client” & Task Correlation (Virtually Ghetto)
vCloud Suite 5.1 Solution Upgrade Guide (VMware CoE Blog)x
vCloud Director 5.1 Virtual Appliance Passwords (VMware vSphere Blog)
Announcing VMware vCloud Director 5.1! (VMware vSphere Blog)
What’s New In vCloud 5.1 API (VMware vSphere Blog)
vCloud Director SAML/SSO FAIL OMG (vSential)
Database clustering support for vCloud Director added in version 5.1! (Yellow Bricks)

Virtual Machine

VMware vSphere 5.1 – Virtual Hardware Version 9 (ESX Virtualization)

vShield

Installing vShield 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Upgrading to vShield 5.1 best practices (KB Article)
Accessing and using the vShield 5.1 REST API (KB Article)
Hardening vShield 5.1 virtual appliances (KB Article)
VXLAN support in vShield Manager (KB Article)
After upgrading to vSphere 5.1 vShield Endpoint stops functioning (KB Article)
Kernel Panic in vShield Manager after Upgrade to 5.1 (Long White Clouds)
ALERT: Full disk on vShield Edge 5.1.x fails with error: VIX_E_DISK_FULL ERROR (VMware Support Insider)

vSphere 5.1 Evaluation Videos

Auto Deploy Stateless Caching
Auto Deploy Stateful Install
Auto Deploy Stateless Mode
Enhanced vMotion
Replication – Protection
Replication – Recovery
Replication – Network Health Check
Network Rollback and Recovery
Network Config Backup and Restore
vSphere Data Protection – Install and Configure
vSphere Data Protection – File Level Restore
vSphere Data Protection – Create and Edit Backup jobs
VSA 5.1 – Installation
VSA 5.1 – ROBO environments
VSA 5.1 – Resilience
VSA 5.1 – Growing Storage

vSphere Data Protection

vSphere Data Protection – a new backup product included with vSphere 5.1 (ESX Virtualization)
VMware vSphere 5.1 Video – VDP, VR – look and feel (ESX Virtualization)
vSphere Data Protection (VDP) – install, configure, manage (ESX Virtualization)
vSphere Data Protection (VDP) – backup and master (ESX Virtualization)
vSphere Data Protection (VDP) – restore operations (ESX Virtualization)
Implementing vSphere Data Protection (VDP) tips (Ivobeerens.nl)
VMware Data Protection (VDP) FAQ (KB Article)
Required ports for vSphere Data Protection 5.1 (KB Article)
Setting the record straight on VMware vSphere Data Protection (VMware vSphere Blog)
Introduction to VMware vSphere Data Protection (VMware Technical Paper)
VMware vSphere Data Protection – Install and Configure (VMware TV Video)
VMware vSphere Data Protection – Create and Edit Backup jobs (VMware TV Video)
VMware vSphere Data Protection – File Level Restore (VMware TV Video)
VMware’s new vSphere Data Protection backup application (vSphere-land.com)
My vCenter Server 5.1 appliance crashed and I was using VDP… now what? (Yellow Bricks)
Back to Basics: Install, configure and use vSphere Data Protection (Yellow Bricks)

vSphere Storage Appliance

VSA Cluster Service Considerations (Cormac Hogan)
Heads Up! VSA 5.1 Upgrade Issues (Cormac Hogan)
Heads Up! If running VSA 5.1, you do not need VSA 5.1.1 (Cormac Hogan)
Heads Up! VSA Manager 5.1.x – Install Error 2896: Executing action failed (Cormac Hogan)
vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 new features and enhancements (ESX Virtualization)
vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.1 – what’s new (ESX Virtualization)
VMware VSA 5.1 – Entry level Virtual Storage Appliance (vInfrastructure Blog)
VMware Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 – Installation (VMware TV Video)
VMware Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 – Growing Storage (VMware TV Video)
VMware Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 – Resilience (VMware TV Video)
VMware Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1 – ROBO Environments (VMware TV Video)
New Features of the vSphere Storage Appliance version 5.1 (VMware vSphere Blog)
vCloud Suite – VSA 5.1 Cluster Service Considerations & Successful Deployments Series – Part 1 (VMware vSphere Blog)

vSphere Web Client

VMware vSphere Web Client Video Support Series (VMware)
Which vSphere client should I use and when? (VMware vSphere Blog)
Discovering vSphere web client 5.1 (Cloud Buddy)
Install or upgrade the vSphere Web Client (Default Reasoning)
vSphere Web Client – New in VMware vSphere 5.1 (ESX Virtualization)
New vSphere Web Client Search Capabilities (ESX Virtualization)
How-to increase the default timeout value of vSphere Web Client (ESX Virtualization)
How to create a datastore cluster using the new web client (Frank Denneman)
How to attach VM storage profiles to a virtual machine using the web client (Frank Denneman)
How to create VM to Host affinity rules using the webclient (Frank Denneman)
vSphere 5.1 vCenter Virtual Appliance and vSphere Web Client Video Tutorial Series (Kendrick Coleman)
Hide those ‘Getting Started’ tabs in the #vSphere 5.1 Web Client (mwpreston.net)
Introduction to the new search functionality in the vSphere Web Client (mwpreston.net)
vSphere Web Client vs. vSphere Client – Sessions (Technodrone)
The new vSphere 5.1 Web Client – A walkthrough (part 1) (Viktorious.nl)
Configuring Additional Windows vSphere Web Client 5.1 Servers (Virtually Ghetto)
Installing the vSphere 5.1 Web Client (VMware KB Video)
Creating a Datacenter and adding an ESXi host using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client (VMware KB Video)
Creating a resource pool in the vSphere Web Client (VMware KB Video)
Creating a vSphere DRS and HA Cluster using the vSphere Web Client (VMware KB Video)
Managing Licenses on ESXi hosts in vSphere Web Client (VMware KB Video)
Registering a vCenter Server 5.0 system with the vSphere 5.1 Web Client (VMware KB Video)
Retaining resource pools when disabling VMware DRS Clusters (VMware KB Video)
Using the vSphere Web Client or PowerCLI to identify impacted VMs after a host failure (VMware KB Video)
VMware vSphere Web Client – Part 1 (VMware TV Video)
VMware vSphere Web Client – Part 2 (VMware TV Video)
Back to Basics: Using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client to create a Cluster object (Yellow Bricks)
Back to Basics: Using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client to create a Datacenter object (Yellow Bricks)
Back to Basics: Using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client to add an NFS share (Yellow Bricks)
Back to Basics: Using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client to configure iSCSI (Yellow Bricks)
Back to Basics: Using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client to configure a vSwitch (Yellow Bricks)

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Sep 04 2012

VMware’s new vSphere Data Protection backup application

With the vSphere 5.1 release VMware is replacing their current vSphere Data Recovery (vDR) product with a new product called vSphere Data Protection (vDP). vDR was first introduced in vSphere 4 as a simple image-level backup application for virtual machines, unlike other products that VMware acquired vDR was developed in-house. It was a no-frills backup application designed to meet the backup needs of smaller vSphere environments. VMware bundled it for free in most editions of vSphere so customers could chose to use it as a way to backup VMs directly from the virtualization layer instead of using traditional OS backup agents. VMware probably felt the need to be able to provide some level of backup support in their core product offering to make it complete. Their strategy is 3 levels of protection in vSphere:

  • High Availability (HA) to provide host level failure protection
  • SRM to provide site level failure protection
  • vDR/vDP to provide VM level protection

vDR was OK, it had limited scalability and very few advanced features that you typically find in more robust backup applications. It also seemed like there was very little product development done to vDR after it’s initial release to make it better. Despite being bundled with vSphere I suspect very few people used it as their primary backup system due to it’s limitations.

So in vSphere 5.1 VMware chose to scrap vDR and replace it with vDP which is based on EMC’s Avamar backup product. I suspect this was done because they did not want to waste development effort on vDR when they already had a backup application in-house that they could leverage. So they took the Avamar backup engine, put a new user interface on it to integrate it with the vSphere web client and re-branded it as vDP. Despite being based on Avamar which is a enterprise backup application, it’s been scaled down to be mostly suitable for smaller vSphere environments. It does retain some of the core Avamar features though like it’s advanced data deduplication capabilities. So vDP is a pretty nice upgrade from vDR, and like vDR it will be bundled for free in certain vSphere editions, however there is no upgrade path from vDP to the full Avamar product.

I was able to attend a session at VMworld that covered vDP and here’s some additional things that I learned about it:

  • vDP can only be managed with the new web interface, you cannot use the vSphere client to manage it
  • Like vDR, vDP is deployed as a virtual appliance
  • The vDP virtual appliance can be deployed in 3 sizes, .5 TB, 1TB or 2TB, this is the size of the virtual disk attached to the vDP appliance which serves as the target for the backup repository
  • Uses the Changed Block Tracking (CBT) feature for both backups and restores
  • Has the ability to restore VMs to different clusters and datastores
  • Supports file level recovery by mounting the backup image and browsing the file system
  • Has very basic reporting capabilities
  • Uses a variable length segment size for deduplication
  • Has a periodic maintenance window for garbage collection
  • vDP can be upgraded to newer releases by attaching the new ISO file to the vDP VM which will automatically sense it and upgrade itself
  • Only supports backing up to 100 VMs per vDP virtual appliance
  • Only supports up to 10 vDP appliances per vCenter Server instance
  • Supports up to 2TB of de-duped storage per vDP appliance
  • Deduplication is agentless and done on the vDP appliance (target)
  • Only 8 VMs can be backed up simultaneously
  • Backing up the vDP appliance is NOT supported, so you cannot do long term retention to tape, this limits the amount of backups that you can retain
  • Deduplication is limited to inside each vDP appliance, you cannot de-dupe across multiple vDP appliances
  • Restore rehearsals are available to manually test VM restorability
  • Supports SCSI hot-add feature as the preferred backup method
  • vDP does not use private APIs and leverages the same vStorage APIs (VADP) as other 3rd party backup apps
  • vDP does not support or integrate with VMware View or vCloud Director
  • vDP will work with vSphere ESX/ESXi 4.x and 5.x, it does require vCenter Server 5.1 though
  • vDP cannot be used without vCenter Server, in Linked Mode the vDP appliance will only work with the vCenter Server that it is associated with
  • Deduplication cannot be disabled and is not compatible with 3rd party deduplication storage
  • vDP can back up both powered on and powered off VMs

For more information on vDP you can visit VMware’s website, it should be available as part of vSphere 5.1 that is being released on 9/11

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Sep 03 2012

VMworld 2012 wrap-up report

Well another VMworld under the belt, for me it’s #5, I’ve been going every year since 2009 and it never gets old. VMware has record attendance every year except for 2009 with this year topping out around 21,000 attendees. I wonder where and when that number will finally peak, with Hyper-V gaining popularity I imagine it will only be a year or two away. Here’s the attendance numbers throughout the years:

  • 2004 VMworld conference held in San Diego, CA (1,400 attendees)
  • 2005 VMworld conference held in Las Vegas, NV (3,500 attendees)
  • 2006 VMworld conference held in Los Angeles, CA (6,700 attendees)
  • 2007 VMworld conference held in San Francisco, CA (10,800 attendees)
  • 2008 VMworld conference held in Las Vegas, NV (14,000 attendees)
  • 2009 VMworld conference held in San Francisco, CA (12,500 attendees)
  • 2010 VMworld conference held in San Francisco, CA (17,000 attendees)
  • 2011 VMworld conference held in Las Vegas, NV (19,000 attendees)
  • 2012 VMworld conference held in San Francisco, CA (21,000 attendees)

vmworld

Here’s a summary of what I saw and heard this year:

  • vSphere 5.1 is announced and on display at the show, this is just an incremental update but it still has some cool enhancements. It will be available on September 11th.
  • Lots of cool new VDI stuff coming soon, VMware’s embedded phone hypervisor (MVP) dream appears to be dead to be replaced by apps and VDI on smartphones. Horizion Mobile was shown off but it seems like it is perpetually on the horizon.
  • vRAM licensing is dead, enough said, bad idea to begin with that came back to bite VMware in the butt. You won’t find a news release from VMware on it and it was only briefly mentioned in the keynote but go read the updated licensing white paper.
  • New cloud suites announced, VMware doesn’t want you to buy just vSphere & vCenter Server anymore so they are packaging the companion products into cloud suites. If you’re a Enterprise Plus customer with current SnS you get a free upgrade to the vCloud Standard suite that gets you vCloud Director and some vShield components.
  • The future of storage in vSphere was shown off again with the new Virtual Volume (vVols) along with Virtual SAN (vSAN) and Virtual Flash (vFlash). vVols represents a lot of development work and is a big change to the vSphere storage architecture. We’ll have to wait and see if VMware is able to pull this one off. You’re not going to find out a lot of information on this stuff, VMware showed it as a tech preview at VMworld but you’re probably not going to see or hear about it again until it’s released.
  • Bring Your Own Desktop ( BYOD) for VDI is out and replaced with Spend Your Own Money (SYOM), I like it.
  • VMware’s whole model for the future is the Software Defined Data Center where the entire physical data center becomes virtual. This includes traditional physical components such as storage and networking. You still need physical components but VMware wants to dumb down the hardware and place the intelligence and manageability inside the virtual layer. Since VMware is a software company that makes no money on hardware that makes sense, I can see the advantages from an integration and manageability standpoint but they are putting a lot of overhead on the hypervisor but doing it. One of the advantages of features like VAAI is being able to offload specific operations to the physical hardware which can do it more efficiently and now they want to bring it back into the hypervisor.
  • VMware’s Next Generation Client, a fancy name for the flex based web client is finally ready for prime time. VMware has been trying to develop it for quite some time now so it could replace all the functionality that the C++ based vSphere Client provides.  Just like ESXi finally replaced ESX, the NGC is ready for use and VMware expects everyone to start using it, you can bet that this is probably the last major release of vSphere that includes the vSphere Client. The NGC has one big advantage that replaced a common gripe, you can use it on any operating system, not just Windows like the vSphere Client was limited to. You don’t really have to use it in this release although there are a few things that require it like vDP but you should get familiar with it now so you are ahead of the curve. You can read more about it in this white paper.
  • VMware took the wraps off their new integrated backup product that replaces vSphere Data Recovery (vDR) that was introduced in vSphere 4.0 as a simple, integrated backup product for smaller customers. vSphere Data Protection (vDP) is the new product and it’s really just Avamar with a new name and coat of paint. Unlike many of their other products that VMware acquired, vDR they developed in-house. VMware probably felt that rather than try and dump all that development effort into a product that many customers don’t even use was a waste. However they felt that they needed to check the box for built-in backup capabilities in vSphere so they took EMC’s Avamar and used it’s engine, put a new wrapper on it, changed the name and replace vDR with it. Now this move may be more convenient for VMware but it’s sure to piss off their partners that compete in that space like Veeam and Symantec. Having a enterprise-class backup product built-in to vSphere could potentially take business away from their partners. vDP has limits though and doesn’t scale well but it’s still a much better product than vDR, especially with it’s built-in de-dupe. As expected it caused a big uproar on the internet, I felt VMware should have been very low-key about it and not even mention the name Avamar to be sensitive to their partners but they chose to keep calling out Avamar at VMworld. EMC was beating their chests to show how proud they were that Avamar was embedded into vSphere. In fact they chose that as their 4-minute demo during the keynote as if to thumb their noses at the competition and rub salt in the wound. I attended a session on vDP so stay tuned for more on it. Before you choose to use it though I strongly encourage you to check out Veeam Backup & Replication instead, you won’t be disappointed.
  • I received an invite to VMware’s exclusive Office of the CTO reception. This is the 3rd year for it at VMworld, it evolved from a gathering that was exclusively for vExperts into a more general gathering with vExperts making up a large portion of the attendees. There were some big names and big talent at the event, many of the product management, lead engineers and top brass were in attendance. Pat Gelsinger was there hanging out and talking to everyone, I was able to meet him and shake his hand. All in all a great event and a great opportunity to meet those people in a casual setting.
  • Having judged the Best of VMworld the previous 3 years I was curious to see who the winners were this year. I was surprised to see many companies that I’ve never heard of win this year, especially in Management and Security. With Hardware for Virtualization all the winners were small storage players, just goes to show that storage for virtualization is hot. You can read about all the winners at Tech Target’s website.
  • I happened to be sitting next to Mike Laverick in the Hang Space when he whipped out his iPhone and dragged me into a mini-wag, you can view it here.
  • Jon Bon Jovi played at the official VMworld party, I was very excited to see him being a Bon Jovi fan but was very disappointed afterwards. Maybe only a quarter of his songs were actual Bon Jovi songs, the rest were all cover songs from other bands. Sounds like he didn’t get to keep much in his divorce from Bon Jovi.

Well that’s it, I probably forgot a few things which I may add to this post later. All in all a good show and can’t wait for next year. Also wanted to call out the good folks over at SolarWinds who sponsored me for this event, be sure and check out their great VMware management solutions.

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