The VMguy

WOW.  Release vSphere and a whole bunch of KB articles come with it.  Glad I didn’t wait two weeks to post this one.

Here’s this week’s selection of the 300 Knowledgebase articles new or updated in the past 7 days :

• vCenter Update Manager 4.0 port requirements <-Many customers are deploying UM to roll out vSphere.
• Installing vCenter Update Manager 4.0 best practices
• Licensing ESX 4.0, ESXi 4.0, and vCenter 4.0 <-Licensing mechanisms in vSphere are completely different in 4.0 from 3.x.
• Configuring IPv6 on ESX 4.0.x <-don’t have a lot of customers doing it, but many are preparing
• Configuring a Virtual Machine Communication Interface (VMCI) on a vSphere ESX host <-you can configure a very fast way for two VM’s to talk on a single host without going thru the network
• Installing Linked-Mode and ADAM <- for linking multiple vCenter servers together
• Configuring Virtual Switch VLAN Tagging (VST) mode on a vNetwork Distributed Switch
• Best practices for using PowerPath/VE with VMware vSphere 4.0 <-If you’re going to use powerpath for multipathing in ESX, read this
• Upgrading VMware Tools on multiple virtual machines
• Disabling vNetwork Distributed Switches <-good to know, had to figure this out on my own in the lab
• Configuring a legacy license server
• vSphere 4.0 upgrade options
• Upgrading an ESX 3.x virtual machine to ESX 4.0
• The Turn on Fault Tolerance option is disabled
• Understanding VMware Fault Tolerance <-Very nice overview of FT and what’s required
• VMware High Availability slot calculation <-how HA’s overhead requirements are determined
  
• Configuring vNetwork Distributed Switch using vCenter
• vNetwork Distributed Switch on ESX 4.x – Concepts Overview
• Downgrading vSphere 4.0 License to ESX 3.5 version <-Good to know if you buy 4.0 licenses but want to run 3.5 still
• VMware ESX 4.0 and VMware ESXi 4.0 require 64bit servers <-this is somewhat obvious but make sure you are aware for older servers
• Required VMware vCenter Converter ports <-for P2V’s thru a DMZ for instance
• vCenter Server Installation Worksheet <-nice checklist for installation of vCenter
• vCenter Required Ports
• Cannot create a new linked clone automatic pool with a custom OU <-ran into this at a customer, specific syntax needed and listed
  
• Installing ESX 4.0 and vCenter 4.0 best practices
• Upgrading to ESX 4.0 and vCenter 4.0 best practices
• Choosing a network adapter for your virtual machine <-great article that every virtualization admin should understand
• EVC and CPU Compatibility FAQ <-If you have different classes of CPU’s, please read.