May 10 2009

vCenter Server Links

General

VirtualCenter Technical Best practices
Bulletproof VirtualCenter (VMworld 2007)
VirtualCenter Monitoring and Performance Statistics
Replacing VirtualCenter Server Certificates
Running VirtualCenter in a Virtual Machine
Using MSCS to Cluster VirtualCenter
Template Usage and Best Practices
Managing Vmware VirtualCenter Roles & Permissions
Testing SMTP with Telnet for VirtualCenter email communication
How to delay loading of specific services if running the database server on the VC server
Maximizing VirtualCenter Data Collection (VMworld 2007)
Clustering VirtualCenter 2.5 Using Microsoft Cluster Services
VM Template best practices (Windows)
VM Template best practices (Linux)
VI3 Roles and Permissions
Proven Practice: ROBO – Managing Remote ESX Hosts Over WAN with VirtualCenter
vCenter Server Heartbeat, the concept, deployment and considerations!

Database

VirtualCenter Database Sizing Calculator
Converting VirtualCenter on Access to SQL Server 2000
Reclaiming space in SQL Server databases
VirtualCenter 2.X Using Database Views
Move SQL database to another SQL server and MS Kb Article
How to manage MSDE 2000 or SQL Express 2005 with Osql
DBAMgr – free GUI utility to manage MSDE
Statistic Rollup Stored Procedures – Optional Parameters
VirtualCenter Statistics Rollup Stored Procedure Fix
VirtualCenter Database Maintenance: SQL Server
Monitor the Virtual Infrastructure Database for authentication attempts
VirtualCenter Database Performance for Microsoft SQL Server 2005
How can I purge old data from the database used by VirtualCenter Server
Troubleshooting transaction logs on a Microsoft SQL database server
Troubleshooting the database data source used by VirtualCenter Server
Investigating the health of a VirtualCenter database server
Extending the tablespace on an Oracle database
Performing a defragmentation of the VirtualCenter performance data indexes on a Microsoft SQL database
Moving VirtualCenter SQL DB to another server
Why you should delete outdated vCenter Server data (Pt. 1)
Deleting extra VI3 vCenter Server data with Microsoft SQL Server (Pt. 2)

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May 10 2009

Update Manager Links

VMware Update Manager Performance and Best Practices
Patching an ESX server with Update Manager

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May 10 2009

Troubleshooting Links

General

Troubleshooting Vmware ESX Server 3 and Vmware VirtualCenter 2 (VMworld 2006)
VI3 Advanced Diagnostics Logs Analysis (VMworld 2007)
Tips for Troubleshooting VMware ESX Server Faults (VMworld 2006)
When disaster strikes VMware
VMware Technical Support Guide
Top Support Issues and How to Solve Them – Batch 1 (VMworld 2007)
Top Support Issues and How to Solve Them – Batch 2 (VMworld 2007)
VI3 Advanced Diagnostics Logs Analysis (VMworld 2007)
Troubleshooting VMware Infrastructure 3 (VMworld 2007 Lab)
Common System Management issues in VMware Infrastructure
Common Licensing issues in VMware Infrastructure
Collecting diagnostic information for VMware products
VI Problem Resolution Paths

Converter

Best practices for troubleshooting VMware Converter
Converter Problem Resolution Paths

ESX/ESXi

Troubleshooting common VMware ESX host server problems
Tips for Troubleshooting ESX Server 3.x Faults (VMworld 2007)
Troubleshooting ESX
Collecting diagnostic information for VMware ESX Server
Troubleshooting a VMware ESX Server Upgrade Failure
Troubleshooting permissions errors when connecting to an ESX Server host with the Virtual Infrastructure client
Troubleshooting host architecture incompatibility
Troubleshooting a VMFS that is out of heap memory

Network

Network Problem Resolution Paths
Troubleshooting VMware ESX network performance
VI3 Networking:Advanced Troubleshooting
Common Network issues in VMware Infrastructure
VI3 Networking – Advanced Configurations and Troubleshooting (VMworld 2007)
VI3 Network Scenarios and Troubleshooting (VMworld 2006)
TCP/IP Troubleshooting: A Structured Approach

Performance

Using esxtop to troubleshoot performance problems

Storage

Troubleshooting SCSI Reservation failures on Virtual Infrastructure 3 and 3.5
Storage Problem Resolution Path
Identifying shared storage issues with ESX 3.x
Troubleshooting VMFS-3 datastore issues
Troubleshooting fibre channel storage connectivity
Troubleshooting ESX and ESXi connectivity to fibre channel arrays
Troubleshooting LUN connectivity issues
Troubleshooting iSCSI array connectivity
Troubleshooting ESX Server and ESXi connectivity to iSCSI arrays using software initiator
Troubleshooting ESX and ESXi connectivity to iSCSI arrays using hardware initiators
Troubleshooting NFS server connectivity
Troubleshooting ESX Server and ESXi host connectivity to an NFS Server
Troubleshooting connectivity issues to an NFS data store
Troubleshooting the failed process of adding a data store from a Windows Services NFS device
Troubleshooting a LUN that is extended in size past the 2TB/2047GB limit
Troubleshooting a virtual machine outage across multiple hosts connected to the same array

vCenter Server

Preventing a VirtualCenter predicament
VirtualCenter 2 Diagnostics (VMworld 2007)
Troubleshooting Adding an ESX Server Host to a VMware High Availability Cluster
Diagnosing an ESX Server that is Disconnected or Not Responding in VirtualCenter
Diagnosing a VMware High Availability cluster configuration failure
Collecting diagnostic information for VMware VirtualCenter 2.x
Troubleshooting a virtual machine that fails to clone from VirtualCenter
Troubleshooting the VMware VirtualCenter Server service when it does not start or fails

Virtual Machines

Resolving VMware ESX problems without pulling the plug
Troubleshooting a virtual machine that has stopped responding
Troubleshooting unresponsive guest operating system issues
Troubleshooting a virtual machine that has no network connectivity
Troubleshooting a failed VMware Tools Installation in a Windows Operating System
Troubleshooting a failed installation of VMware Tools in Linux
Troubleshooting the installation of 64bit guest operating systems
Cannot power on a virtual machine because the virtual disk cannot be opened
Investigating if an ESX virtual machine is powered on
Verifying ESX virtual machine file integrity & how to rename a virtual machine
Verifying ESX virtual machine file names
Verifying that ESX virtual machine storage is accessible
Virtual Machine seems to install VMware Tools but Tools never get installed

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May 07 2009

Time Sync Links

Configuring windows time service (not in ESX)
VMware time sync and windows time service (understand windows time first)
Timekeeping in VMware virtual machines
Clock in a Linux guest runs more slowly or quickly than real time
How to configure an authoritative time server in Windows Server 2003
How Windows Time Service Works
Adjusting ESX Server Time Zone
Script to setup NTP on ESX
VM Time (reporting)
Time falls behind in a virtual machine when the memory of the virtual machine is paged from disk by the VMkernel
Time falls behind in a virtual machine when the guest operating system writes to previously unwritten regions of its virtual disk
Time runs too fast in a Windows virtual machine when the Multimedia Timer interface is used
Determining and changing the rate of timer interrupts a guest operating system requests
Time in virtual machine drifts due to hardware timer drift
Timekeeping best practices for Linux

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May 07 2009

Storage vMotion Links

Storage VMotion Script
VI 2.5 Client Plug-in for Storage vMotion
SVMotion graphical user interface
Storage VMotion Fails With Error Message “Failed to unstun VM after disk reparent”
What is storage vMotion and how do you perform a svMotion using the VI Plug-in
Technology Preview – Storage vMotion (VMworld 2007)
Real World Experiences Using Storage VMotion

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May 07 2009

Storage Links

General

All-in-one Storage and Virtualization Learning Guide
Layers of Virtual Storage in VMware VI3: Configuration without Confusion
Choosing and Architecting Storage for your Environment (VMworld 2006)
iSCSI , NAS and IP Storage Configuration for Vmware ESX Server (VMworld 2006)
A look at the ESX I/O Stack
Improving system performance cost effectively (10 vs. 15K drives)
Network Appliance and VMware ESX Server 3.0 Storage Best Practices
Network Appliance and VMware ESX Server 3.0 Building a Virtual Infrastructure from Server to Storage
Get to know RAID levels
What is new in Storage in VI3 Release 3.5
Comparison of Storage Protocol Performance
Performance Report: Multiprotocol Performance Test of VMware ESX 3.5 on NetApp Storage Systems
Design, Build and Manage your SAN Environment using VI3 (Vmword 2007)
NFS & iSCSI – Performance Characterization and Best Practices (VMworld 2007)
Tuning ESX Server 3.5 for Better Storage Performance by Modifying the Maximum I/O Block Size
Easy and Efficient Disk I/O Workload Characterization in VMware ESX Server
Which storage protocol is best?
Internal vs. external guest virtual machine storage
Storage IO crash consistency with VMware products

Fibre Channel/SAN

SAN Configuration Guide
Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide
SAN Conceptual and Design Basics
SAN System Design and Deployment Guide
Using VMware ESX Server with Hitachi Data Systems NSC or USP Storage
VMware Infrastructure 3, HP StorageWorks Best Practices
Using multi-pathing in ESX Server
Round Robin Load Balancing
Obtaining LUN pathing information for ESX Server 3
Queue Depth
How to check if a LUN is locked by a host
Scripting Queue Depth in a QLogic/EMC environment
EnableResignature and/or DisallowSnapshotLUN
Script for Balancing Multipathing in ESX 3.x
Increasing the queue depth?
Understanding MRU behavior in VMware ESX 3.x
Are You Stuck with a Single REALLY busy array port when using ESX?? Script for Balancing Multipathing in ESX 3.x

iSCSI

Ethernet-based Storage Configuration
Configuring iSCSI in a Vmware 3 environment
How to create an inexpensive iSCSI SAN for VMware ESX
iSCSI Design Considerations and Deployment Guide
Best Practices in an EqualLogic iSCSI Virtualized SAN
Virtualized iSCSI SANS: Flexible, Scalable Enterprise Storage for Virtual Infrastructures
iSCSI in VMware ESX 3
Connect VMware ESX Server to a free iSCSI SAN using Openfiler
Use OpenFiler as your Free VMware ESX SAN Server
iSCSI: Superior Storage for Virtualization
How to configure OpenFiler v2.3 iSCSI Storage for use with VMware ESX
A “Multivendor Post” to help our mutual iSCSI customers using VMware
Installing LeftHand’s virtual storage appliance in VMware ESX
Connecting VMware ESX to LeftHand’s virtual storage appliance
Configuring and troubleshooting basic Software iSCSI setup

NFS

VMware over NFS
Why VMware over NetApp NFS
Important Note Regarding VMware over NFS
VMware and NFS on NetApp Filers
NFS Datastores and what was their BIG issue…
NFS.LockDisable what should it be 1 or 0
Advisory for advanced VMkernel parameter NFS.LockDisabled
Mythbusters – NFS for VMware
VMFS vs. NFS for VMware Infreastructure?

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May 07 2009

Stencil & Graphic Links

Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Professional Add-In for Rack Server Virtualization
VI3 Visio Action Pack
Veeam Stencils for Microsoft Visio 2003 and 2007
Virtualization Visio Stencils
Various Hardware Vendor Visio Stencils
Library VMware Icons and Diagrams
VMware Logos and product screenshots & diagrams
VMware Icons and Diagrams – Visio Stencils
VMware Icons, Graphics & Diagrams

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May 07 2009

Snapshot Links

How VMware Snapshots work (Part 1)
Deleting virtual machine snapshots without wasting disk space (Part 2)
Troubleshooting VMware Snapshots (Part 3)
Recover from expanded disk with existing snapshot or corrupted snapshots
Snapshot Technology Overview
Implementation and Performance Evaluation of Two Snapshot Methods on iSCSI Target Storages
Troubleshooting timeout issue when committing a large snapshot
After cold migration on ESX Server, virtual disk with snapshot has the wrong CID
Consolidating snapshots
Why snapshot removal can stop a virtual machine for long time

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