You probably noticed by now that there is a limitation in Standard and Enterprise editions of vSphere to a maximum of 6-cores per CPU.  The Advanced and Enterprise-Plus editions of vSphere have a licensed limit of 12-cores per CPU.  Now that Intel’s 8-core CPUs and AMD’s 12-cores are out, what’s next?  Intel and AMD are sure to develop a proc with more than 12 cores (and probably sooner than we all think).  What will happen to VMware’s licensing then?  You have to remember that from a revenue standpoint, when a 24 core proc comes out, customers will be able to run twice as many workloads on that proc (or at least 50% more).  Moore’s Law states that processing performance of CPUs will double every two years.  With the processors doubling in power so quickly, customers are typically not doubling their number of VMs in the same time period.  The result is that customers tend to have a diminishing need to increase their ESX per-CPU licensing.  I know that there are exceptions to this rule, but in the SMB space the majority are not growing that fast (at least not in this economy).  The increase in processor performance actually works against VMware’s current licensing model. It not good to have a direct connection between your main revenue stream and someone else’s CPU release schedule.  What will happen?  What’s the right answer?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Will they go to a per-vm model?  Increase their current limits?  Find some middle-ground between the two?  Will they “grandfather” their customers like AT&T did with the iPad data plans?  Only VMware knows.  My opinion is that this is an issue that has to be dealt with eventually.  Maybe this will be the year, maybe next.

The second licensing dilemma that I run into is in Site Recovery Manager.  It’s no secret that SRM is my favorite non-ESX product from VMware.  As you probably know, SRM is licensed by the physical CPU where the protected virtual machines reside or could reside.  Here’s where that model breaks down:  let’s say I have a smaller customer who’s policy is only to have a DR plan for 5 of their most critical Virtual Machines.  Those five VMs run in a cluster comprise of 5 dual CPU hosts with HA and DRS enabled.  According to the SRM licensing model, I need 10 CPUs of SRM for those 5 VMs.  That does not fly well.  The solution I’ve heard some engineers mention is to create a separate smaller cluster for just the protected VMs.  I’m not fond of that idea because it goes against the consolidation principal.  I’ve never felt that lowering your consolidation ratio was justified because it did not fit a licensing model.

I know there are people much smarter than me at work trying to find a solution to both of these scenarios.  I’m hopeful that they will get resolved in a way that’s fair to both sides.  Maybe this is the year, maybe it is not.  Either way, we’ve made it thru half of 2010, perhaps the answers lie in the last 6 months of the year.

PCoIP Display Protocol: Information and Scenario-Based Network Sizing Guide – (12 pages) A good paper with very good insight on the PCoIP protocol used in VMware View.  It gives some good suggestions and the required bandwidths needed to satisfy the end users on their desktop experience.  A must have for view deployments.  (****, 4 of 5 stars)

Application Presentation to VMware View Desktops with Citrix XenApp – (3 pages) This is a whitepaper to show how to deploy applications in VMware View desktops from XenApp.  While I can see this being useful for View admins who use XenApp, the description and instructions are very minimal.  Probably something better suited for a KB article. (**, 2 of 5 stars)

Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines – (26 pages) This is a very important topic for all VM Admins to know.  Time is relevant to everything in a VM, whether you are trying to authenticate to Active Directory or troubleshooting using event logs, accurate time is very important.  This paper goes into some really great detail on how VMware maintains accurate time in VMs.  If you are a VMware admin, this should be a standard read.   (*****, 5 of 5 stars, vKeeper)

SAN System Design and Deployment Guide – (244 pages of storage goodness)  I have a storage background so I specifically enjoy this one.  If you are running ESX on SAN shared storage (you should be on some type of shared storage) then this is a must read.  This whitepaper is also very helpful if you are studying for the VCP or one of the new VCAP exams.  This is another paper I keep local and definitely one all VM admins with SAN should review.  (*****, 5 of 5 stars, vKeeper)

Best Practices for Running vSphere on NFS Storage – (14 pages) On the heels of the SAN design and deployment guide, this paper describes the best practices for running NFS on vSphere.  I like the fact that this article references outdated best practices that have changed and why they have changed.  This is a HUGE help to admins who google a topic only to find conflicting information.  My only regret on this paper is that I would like to see more detail on the advanced options and how they affect the performance of NFS.  Still a important doc for VM Admins using NFS storage.  Should be reviewed by all of them to make sure they are current in their deployment of NFS best practices.  (****, 4 of 5 stars)

Location Awareness in VMware View 4 – (8 pages) Good information for View Admins to know where to find out where their clients are connecting from.  This is a common request from hospitals to have printers “follow the user” as they float from terminal to terminal.  There are some advanced topics in this article and some Active Directory knowledge is definitely required especially when using loopback mode in group policy processing.  Good info and hopefully View will include some GUI-based  native features in the future to assist with this.  (***, 3 of 5 stars)

VMware vSphere 4.0 Security Hardening Guide – (70 pages) This is a outstanding reference for any VM Admin.  Security affects everyone’s environment, from the 3-man shop to the largest infrastructure.  Setting the precedence of a solid, secure enviornment from the ground up will provide you with a infrastructure that is solid as a rock. I recommend reviewing this paper often and keeping this one handy   (*****, 5 of 5 stars, vKeeper)

VMware vStorage Virtual Machine File System – Technical Overview and Best Practices – (13 pages) This is a entry level paper on some of the very basics of VMFS and how they relate to RDMs.  This should be a good introduction to VMFS to new VM Admins.  I hoped with “Best Practices” in the title that there would be more technical references (advanced options for VMFS and how tweaking them affects the storage performance for instance).  I was also disappointed to see the LUN size question answered vaguely, suggesting to refer to the storage vendor to size your LUNs appropriately.  I prefer Duncan’s approach to LUN sizing and it’s what I recommend to all of my customers.  (***, 3 of 5 stars)

Look for the vPaper Report again next quarter (hopefully with some new releases in between). Until then, happy reading!

Then it hit me, a single ESX host currently can see up to 256 LUNs.  Initially I thought, “but they’re never going to run more than 256 VMs on a host.”  No, but they did want to start using vMotion.  Now the LUNs will need to be presented to all hosts.  This 256 LUN limit no longer relates to the single host but to the cluster as a whole.  With all LUNs presented to all hosts, as long as they keep provisioning one-LUN-per-VM, they will be limited to 255 VM’s for the cluster (one of the LUNs is for booting ESX).  This was a limit they were most certainly going to hit (and at an accelerated pace, now that they have vMotion).

This made sense quickly to the customer.  The story has a happy ending: next week we’re upgrading them to vSphere and going to storage vMotion those VMs to a place with a better design.  There’s one thing I’ve learned about storage and virtualization is that there are no wrong designs.  However, there are ones that limit functionality.

The moral of the story is to know thy vmware maximums!  Make sure to check if a single host’s limitation could affect the design of an entire cloud.

Happy Earth Day!

VMware vShield Zones – Reviewers Guide – If you haven’t figured this out yet, pay close attention to the Reviewers Guides.  If you have even slightly thought of trying out a product or technology, the reviewers guide is the next best thing to having an engineer over your shoulder walking you thru the product.  This is a really good one on Zones.  I learned quite a few things about the product that I was unaware of.  It’s a great read if you need to lock down and firewall off your VMs (or if you just want to learn how the VMs talk to each other).

Performance Brief for IBM WebSphere Application Server 7.0 with VMware ESX 4 on HP ProLiant DL380 G6 Servers – This is a very specific paper on running Websphere on HP servers.  I did find some interesting bits in it however.  Specifically, configuration tips to maximize performance running Websphere in a VM.  The performance metrics should also be evaluated if you want to run Websphere on any hardware platform (perhaps even IBM).

Best Practices for Running vSphere on NFS Storage – I’m currently in a documentation war with my EMC Channel SE who swears by running VMware on NFS (You still have to convince me Steve, I’m a block-IO bigot).  This is a must-have for all Admins running VMware on NFS.  It’s also a really good guideline if you want to compare performance between file-level or block-level IO in your VMware environment and make sure your making an accurate decision.  My favorite section of this paper: “Previously thought to be Best Practices.”  Every best practice white paper should have that to debunk outdated information.  Outstanding work VMware!

PVSCSI Storage Performance -This is a paper I was waiting to see.  It compares the performance of the PVSCSI adapter to the LSI Logic adapter.  I guessed pretty close on the outcomes.  The PVSCSI adapter does perform better under higher IO workloads (some have stated only use it >2000 IOPs.)  The only thing I didn’t like about the test was that RDMs were used.  VMware has argued for the last few years that high-performance should not be a requirement for using RDMs.  So why not use what the majority of customers use in their environments?

RIM BlackBerry Enterprise Server on VMware Virtual Infrastructure Deployment Guide – I really liked and hated this paper.  I liked it because it has some really good best practices and deployment tips depending on the size of the environment.  I hated it because it definitely contains errors: Table 2 shows a BES server with 23% utilization on ESX 3.5, Table 3 shows a BES server with 27% utilization under ESX 4, Figure 12 says the CPU load went down from 27 to 23 going to vSphere – not according to your tables kids.

That will do it for this month’s White Paper Review.  We’ll see you next month and look for more great technical information.

Dell EqualLogics, Version 1.0.2, Released 01/20/2010

EMC Celerra, Version 4.0.17, Released 01/29/2010

Fujitsu ETERNUS SF AdvancedCopy Manager, Version 1.3| Released 01/29/2010

IBM DS4000/5000, Version 01.01.35.05, Released 01/15/2010

IBM N-series SAN Adapter, Version 1.4.2, Released 01/07/2010

LSI, Version 1.01.30.05, Released 01/21/2010

You can find the updated SRAs on the SRM download site here.  As always, please check to make sure these updates are necessary for your environment.  I would have included the release notes but unfortunately the vendors are not keep track of them.  Upgrade at your own risk, and if you do, please test your recovery plans out fully with the new adapters.

Update: It appears the links are back.  Be aware they may be flaky if VMware is working on the site today.

Anti-Virus Deployment for VMware View – Great article on what to consider when deploying an anti-virus solution for your View desktops.  Great reading on how to best protect your desktop VMs.  My favorite part is the detailed exclusion list for the anti-virus scanners – very helpful.

Analysis of IBM System x3850 M2 Performance and Scalability with VMware vSphere 4 and SAP Solutions – a very specific read but has some very nice scailibility charts in it for the IBM x3850.  There’s also a nice listing of the optimized IBM BIOS settings on the server.

ESRI ArcGIS Server 9.3 for VMware Infrastructure – a good read if you are deploying the ESRI ArcGIS mapping software in your environment.  Very specifics on configuration of that software on ESX 3.5.

VMware View 4 & VMware ThinApp Integration Guide – A very nice paper on how to integrate ThinApp packages into pools of desktops in View.  It has a lot of items to consider when deploying apps this way.  I’m personally hoping for some native VMware integration coming in the future.

Application Registration with VMware ThinApp – Here’s the question: how can I associate a specific file type with a ThinApp’ed application so when I click the file, it opens in the ThinApp’ed App?  Bingo, the doc goes through how to set this up in your environment on virtual or physical desktops.

Workload Considerations for Virtual Desktop Reference Architectures Info Guide – Great paper on the RAWC (Reference Architectures Workload Code) tool.  It allows you to simulate desktop workloads in VM’s to help size them in a VDI deployment.

Reference Architecture Brief: Dell Virtual Remote Desktop Featuring VMware View 4 – A paper from Dell on a reference architecture to use for VDI deployments.  Good reading if you plan on doing VDI on Dell in 2010.

VMware Reference Architecture for Cisco UCS and EMC CLARiiON with VMware View 4 – A good reference architecture for VDI using View, Cisco UCS and a EMC Clariion CX4-480.  Good read for using VDI on this platform.

VMware View 4 Evaluator’s Guide – The standard read if you are planning on Evaluating VMware View.  This one is a must-have to make sure you test out all of the features and functionality in View.

Deploying Virtual Desktops with VMware View 4 on EMC Celerra NS-120 Validation Test Report – A paper on the results from EMC’s testing of their NS-120 as a platform for View.

VMware View on NetApp Storage Solution Brief – Nice overview of the benefits gained from running View on NetApp storage.  Lists and itemizes the integrated functionality and benefits.

VMware View 4 with PCoIP Info Guide – A nice little paper overviewing the features built into the PCoIP protocol built into View4.

Management of VMware ESXi on HP ProLiant Servers – (what? something not View related?) A good paper listing the integration and monitoring options of HP Servers running ESXi and HP Insight Manager.  Many HP customers have asked me for this information.

VMware vCenter Server 4.x: Using Database Views – A very good listing of fields stored on the vCenter4 database.  Customers have asked me many times for this kind of info and there are not many publications on it.  Great read if you want to extract some custom info from your vCenter database.

HP Reference Architecture for VMware View 4 – Good read if you are thinking of running View on HP blades.  Nice reference architecture from HP.

SAP Solutions on VMware vSphere 4 – Best Practice Guidelines – A must-read if you plan on virtualizing your SAP deployment on vSphere.  Many customers have asked for this doc.

VMware View 4 Deployment Guide – (had to end it on a View article) A must read when you are planning a View deployment.  Great points to remember and pitfalls to avoid.  Definitely a keeper if you are deploying View in 2010.

1. Open the client and connect to the vCenter server
2. From the menu bar select view/inventory/virtual machines and templates
3. on the left pane, select the level of the vm list you want to grab (if you want all of the vms, select the top-level folder)
4. on the right pane, select the virtual machines tab which will show you the list of vm’s at whatever level you’ve selected on the left pane.
5. one suggestion I have here is to right-click the titles on the right pane, this provides a list of all the fields available.  Select “DNS name” as one of the fields and it will add the “dns name” field to the rightmost column (very helpful in case you have named your vm’s in vcenter different than their actual dns names).  Another helpful field that you may want to use is “Guest OS” IMO.  You can also add any other fields that you want (or don’t want) to report on.  You can re-order them by dragging and dropping the field titles in the right pane.
6. when you have the right pane looking the way you want it, go back up to the menu bar and select File/Export/Export List…
7. Pick your format (Excel is available) and export it.  It will export everything in the right pane including your field titles in the spreadsheet.

Enjoy and good luck.

Dynamic Storage Provisioning – A very nice introduction to Thin Provisioning in vSphere.  The concept of Thin Provisioning is explained as well as when you want to use it.  Some interesting points I noted in the article: Thin disks expand in chunks the size of the vmdk’s block size (1MB by default) and the only way to defragment a vmdk currently? – Storage vMotion.

Performance Study of VMware Thin Provisioning – Very good read on the performance impact of thin provisioned disks vs. thick disks.  I was somewhat surprised by the results.  There’s not nearly as much of a performance impact as I thought there would be.  A very good read if you are looking to justify Thin Disks for some applications within your organization.

VMCI Socket Performance – This was a very interesting paper that I’m still scratching my head on.  VMCI is the interface that programmers can use to communicate between VM’s on a given host.  So if a programmer is writing an app and it requires 2 VMs that do a lot of communication to each other, they can communicate on the VMCI interface instead of traversing the TCP/IP network and going thru all of the networking stack.  This paper shows the performance of using VMCI instead of TCP/IP for Windows and Linux boxes.  I’m scratching my head because the results are not as linear as I would have expected and there are scenarios that perform much better or worse than others.  Take a read and make your own conclusions.

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4.0 Performance and Best Practices for Performance – I’m probably the #1 fan of SRM.  I think what SRM does for DR is like what a conductor does for an orchestra.  As you may know, SRM 4.0 now scales to 1,000 VMs.  It can take a while to optimize that number of VMs for recovery.  This paper is an excellent resource for optimizing the setup and config of SRM to scale effectively to a very large number of VMs.

This KB article (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008027) reads:

For VMware FT to be supported, the servers that host the virtual machines must each use a supported processor from the same category as documented below:

Intel Xeon based on 45nm Core 2 Microarchitecture Category:
3100 Series
3300 Series
5200 Series (DP)
5400 Series
7400 Series

Intel Xeon based on Core i7 Microarchitecture Category:
3500 Series
5500 Series

AMD 3rd Generation Opteron Category:
1300 and 1400 Series
2300 and 2400 Series (DP)
8300 and 8400 Series (MP)

Please note the requirement “same category.”  As an example, if you have a server with a 54xx series Intel Processor and a Intel 55xx series processor (both have the technology for FT), you can vMotion and DRS between them (via EVC) but you cannot run a Fault Tolerant pair across them.  The Lockstep technology from Intel changed in the 35xx and 55xx CPUs and is not compatible with the previous generations of lockstep.

Some nice updates included in the release notes:

vCenter Chargeback 1.0.1 provides the following new features:

• Support for Windows Authentication
  This release of vCenter Chargeback supports Windows Authentication for SQL Server databases. If you are using SQL Server for the vCenter Chargeback database or for the vCenter Server database, then you can configure the application to use Windows Authentication instead of SQL Authentication.
• New computing resource and billing policies added
  This release of vCenter Chargeback introduces a new computing resource, vCPU, and two new billing policies,vCPU Count and Memory Size and Fixed Cost and vCPU Count and Memory Size. These policies enable you to calculate cost based on the number of virtual CPUs and the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machines.
• Resource Summary section lists rolled-up usage data for all entities
  The Resource Summary section of the chargeback reports show the rolled-up usage data for all the entities.
• Global fixed cost history is retained
  This release of vCenter Chargeback lets you to set different cost values for different time periods on the same global fixed cost. The old values are retained and not overwritten.
• Ability to undo to the most recent operation on the chargeback hierarchy
  The most recent operation on the chargeback hierarchy can be undone. This undo feature is available for entities that are added or moved in the hierarchy. The undo option is not available for rename and delete operations.
• Ability to use the vCenter Chargeback APIs
  vCenter Chargeback APIs provide an interface to programmatically use the various features of vCenter Chargeback. As an application developer, you can use these APIs to build chargeback applications or integrate vCenter Chargeback with your internal billing systems and compliance policies. Please do note that the APIs released with this version of vCenter Chargeback are only for a technical preview.

How do you enable EVC (Enhanced vMotion Compatibility) in a cluster that is running vCenter?  On vCenter4, as long as the CPU baseline does not change from what the CPUs are running at currently, you should be able to do this while vCenter is running.  But what if your on 3.5 (which requires all VMs to be down to enable EVC) or if you need to change the baseline from the current when you enable EVC (which also requires the VMs to be down)?

Yes it can be done (if you have enough hosts). All the details can be found in KB article 1013111.  It becomes a “shell game” of moving hosts and VMs.  You basically start a new cluster with no hosts.  Turn on EVC on the new cluster.  Put one of your hosts into maintenance mode and remove it from it’s current cluster.  You can then add that host to the new cluster.  Then you can shut down vCenter and remove it from the inventory (note the storage location) and re-add it into the new cluster and power it on.  You can then balance moving VMs to the new cluster.  This may be able to be done live, unless the baselines are off which will require the VMs to be cold-migrated.  As hosts are emptied of VMs, you can then migrate them to the new cluster.

I don’t believe this should be a major impact on whether to run vCenter in a VM, just one thing to remember if you do.

Capacity Awareness

• View and analyze past, present, and future capacity states at-a-glance with dashboard graphs and tables.
• Eliminate costly routine monitoring and management tasks through automation using customized capacity thresholds and alerts.

Capacity Optimization

• Reclaim excess capacity from idle, oversized, or powered-off virtual machines.
• Size and allocate capacity for each virtual machine based on historical and future needs.
• Place virtual machines in the most optimal clusters to eliminate further waste.

Capacity Prediction

• Simulate one-time business events to quantify potential business impact.
• Identify the timing of potential capacity shortfalls based on trends and forecasts.
• Purchase and provision capacity as and when needed.

There is one important thing to note from the release notes: “CapacityIQ supports VirtualCenter 2.5, Update 4 and Update 5, managing hosts running ESX Server 3.0.2 through 3.5. CapacityIQ 1.0 does not support VMware vSphere 4.0 or vCenter 4.0.”

You can find the download in the download section here.

There are 3 scenarios of MSCS clusters and ESX: Cluster-in-a-box (both MSCS nodes are on the same physical host – great for testing), cross-host (where each of the MSCS node VMs resides on different ESX hosts), and physical-virtual (where one MSCS node is physical, one is virtual).  The requirements for MSCS can change, even in the minor updates, so check the documentation often.  Here’s my compiled list of requirements/tips for MSCS on ESX 4.0:

• You are still limited to two-node clusters with MSCS on ESX 4.
• From a storage perspective, you can use local storage (for cluster-in-a-box) or Fiber Channel (for cross-host or physical-virtual clusters).  There is still no support for NFS or iSCSI (I personally think this is because FC and local storage have more predictable performance – although iSCSI is improving on this).
• If you are doing cross-host, both hosts must be running the same version of ESX (this just makes sense really).
• The MSCS node VMs cannot move as part of HA or DRS.  (HA is being a little redundant for MSCS, DRS is because MSCS is so hyper-sensitive to network connectivity that even a ping loss could failover the MSCS cluster).
• You cannot use MSCS with Fault Tolerance  (i.e. FT VM’s can reside on the same physical ESX hosts, but MSCS node VMs cannot run as FT pairs)
• You cannot vMotion MSCS node VM’s.  (Same reason as DRS).
• You cannot use N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
• If you are using FC and using the native multipathing in ESX, you cannot use round robin as a path policy.
• You must use VM hardware version 7 with ESX/ESXi 4.0 (if you migrated the VMs from ESX 3.5 or before, make sure to upgrade your VM hardware version)
• Failover clustering with Windows Server 2008 is not supported with virtual compatibility mode RDM’s, for Win2008 use physical compatibility mode RDMs.
• You cannot use thin-provisioned disks for the Windows OS vmdk’s, they have to be thick.
• For Win2000 and Win2003 use LSI Logic Parallel as the controller type for the shared storage.  For Win2008 use LSI Logic SAS.
• For physical-virtual MSCS clusters, use RDMs in physical compatibility mode (this just makes sense if you think about it)
• You cannot run storage multipathing software in the VMs or on ESX (i.e. no PowerPath VE).
• You cannot over-commit memory for the MSCS node VMs, set the Memory Reservation option for each of the nodes to the amount of memory assigned to the virtual machine.
• Set the disk I/O timeout to 60 sec. or more (HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk\TimeOutValue) in the registry.

You can find all the details and steps walking you thru the setup of MSCS on ESX in this article .  If you’re not on vSphere yet but you want to run MSCS nodes as VMs, you can find the proper docs for your version of ESX in a freshly updated KB article located here .

You can use standalone converter or converter in vCenter.  There are two main points to remember:

1. The source VM cannot be para-virtualized.
2. You must disable the VS Tools Installed setting on the configuration tab within the source VM before starting.

At this point you can do cold cloning or hot cloning (depending on your software versions).  The conversion works about the same as a standard physical machine at this point.  Please make sure to review the KB article fully, it will allow you Safe Passage from Virtual Iron.

This release is all bug fixes, here’s the list from the release notes:

The following issues have been resolved since the last release of Data Recovery. For a full list of known existing issues, see VMware Data Recovery 1.0 Release Notes. The list of resolved issues below pertains to this release of Data Recovery only.

• Large Temporary Files Removed as ExpectedData Recovery modifies virtual machines’ vmdk files’ settings so a snapshot can be created for backup purposes. In the past, after the backup has been created, the vmdk file’s settings was sometimes left configured for snapshots even after the backup was complete. This led to these virtual machines being left in snapshot mode while accumulating snapshots that were undetected by vSphere Client. This process has been redesigned so that these temporary files are no longer be left behind. In previous versions of Data Recovery, this issue can be resolved by following the process described in the knowledge base article titled “Delete ddb.delete entries and snapshots left behind by Vmware Data Recovery”.
• Backups Can Be Completed While Integrity Checks Are RunningData Recovery can complete backup operations at the same time that an integrity check is running. In the past, when an integrity check was running, backups could not be completed.
• Improved Integrity Check Backup SpeedIntegrity check has been optimized for faster performance. In the past, comparable integrity checks took longer to complete.
• Improved VMotion Licensing SupportVirtual machines can be moved between hosts using VMotion without producing licensing issues. In the past, if a virtual machine was moved between hosts using VMotion, licensing checks sometimes produced errors.
• Reduced Data Recovery Backup Appliance Shutdown TimeThe Data Recovery Backup appliance now shuts down more quickly than it did before. In the past, the appliance often took 15 minutes to shutdown.
• Improved Support for Different Time ZonesIn the past, Data Recovery did not consistently handle time zones with positive offsets relative to GMT. For example, Data Recovery could encounter issues with data associated with the Paris time zone, which has an offset of +1, whereas data associated with the New York time zone, which has an offset of -5 was handled as expected. These issues no longer occur.
• Data Recovery Supported with Essentials Plus LicensesData Recovery is included in Essentials Plus licenses. In the past, using Data Recovery with Essentials Plus licenses failed. Backup jobs created with Essentials Plus licenses failed with the error, License not available to perform operation. Feature hotplug not licensed....
• Integrity Check Optimized to Run During Idle TimesBefore running regularly scheduled integrity checks, the Backup Appliance determines if the current time is during a backup window. If the current time is not during a backup window, the integrity check runs. If the current time is during a backup window, the backup appliance checks the backup schedule to determine if there will be a time in the next 24 hours that will not be during a backup window. If there is a time in the next 24 hours that is not during a backup window, the Backup Appliance waits for that time. If there is no time that is not during a backup window in the next 24 hours, the Backup Appliance completes the integrity check.

Support for High Consolidation in VMware HA Clusters – VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 includes significant performance and scalability improvements to VMware HA. Use VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 for environments with more than 35 virtual machines per host in an HA cluster.
For information on the ESX Server host settings required for this scalability improvement, see ESX Server host settings required for environments with up to 80 virtual machines per host in an HA Cluster (KB 1012002).

You can download the new version here.

• VMware vSphere 4: Exchange Server on NFS, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel – a very nice paper on how NFS, iSCSI, and Fiber Channel performed running a very large number of mailboxes on Exchange.
• Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0 – Absolutely a must-read for new administrators and a new addition for my Admin Bookmarks page .  This is also a great review for those looking to upgrade to vSphere.
• Using Local Disks in VMware View Deployment – A very interesting idea: in a remote office running local ESX servers, use a Storage Appliance to gain HA with local disks only for desktops running in View.
• VMware Fault Tolerance Recommendations and Considerations on VMware vSphere 4 – The defacto-standard read if you are planning to use FT in your enviornment.  This article is a keeper of all of the current ins-and-outs of FT.
• What’s New in VMware vSphere 4: Virtual Networking – a great reference for all of the new capabilities in networking in 4.0.  Very detailed and technical.
• What Is New in VMware vSphere 4: Storage – The complete list of everything that’s new from a storage perspective.  From thin-provisioning to Pluggable Storage Architecture, it’s all there.

• Managing Custom ESXi Extensions – A short paper on tips on how to add or remove or troubleshoot customer ESXi Extensions.  These can be things like VMKernel module, driver, or Common Interface Module (CIM) Providers.
• DMZ Virtualization Using VMware vSphere 4 and the Cisco Nexus 1000V Virtual Switch – The title indicates this Paper is for a DMZ deployment but in reality this is a very good overall paper on many of the capabilities of the Nexus 1000v Software switch from Cisco.  If you are thinking about the 1000v, definately take a read thru this.
• Software and Hardware Techniques for x86 Virtualization – This is an outstanding history lesson about how virtualization has evolved from the early days to today.  It’s very technical in nature describing Binary Translation to Paravirtualization and hardware extensions.  These are things we, as VMware engineers, have known for a long time.  This gives our technical customers and partners a better understanding of many of the concepts around virtualization and where they come from.

For instance, this utility only works on XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008.  It allows you to run a command from the command line pointing it at you Data Recovery appliance.  The utility then responds with a list of all of the restore points the machine you are running on has available.  You can then select a restore point from the list and the utility mounts that restore point as additional drive(s) on the current VM.  You can then use explorer to grab the single files you need out of the backup image.  When completed, you type the "unmount" command on the command line which will unmount all of the disks mounted by the utility.

It is still in the Experimental stage but looks very promising for admins just needing to grab a few files out of Data Recovery.

You can grab it and the docs for it in the Data Recovery download section here .

• VMware VDI Storage Considerations <-A great paper which discusses which protocol to use, how to lay out datastores, etc for View implementations.
• Running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 on VMware Infrastructure <-A great paper for those wanting to virtualize Sharepoint.
• Automating SharePoint Provisioning and Deployment on VMware vSphere <- This paper describes how you can setup sharepoint sites in templates for rapid deployment of new sharepoint instances.
• Virtualizing a Windows Active Directory Domain Infrastructure <- I know many have already done this  but it is still a great reference and includes best practices.  Definately want to confirm your settings against this white paper
• SAP Solutions on VMware vSphere: High Availability <- A good white paper on the availability options for SAP implementations and the benefits of each.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Performance on VMware vSphere^TM 4 <-Great reading for seeing how Exchange performs on ESX4.

Smart Card and Certificate Authentication in VMware View  <-If you need to use smart cards with VMware View this a must read

Repurposing a PC to a Thin Desktop Using VMware View <-a very common question from customers that want to extend the life of their PC a little longer.  Good reading on a few ideas on how to do so.

Network Segmentation in Virtualized Environments  <-Some good ideas if you need to seperate and firewall off sections of your infrastructure.

Performing a Command-Line Installation of vCenter Server <- This could be very helpful if you need to deploy multiple vCenter servers perhaps for a number of branch offices.

Configuring the Net-SNMP Agent on ESX Hosts <-Good reading to run SNMP direct from ESX hosts.

VMware vSphere^TM 4 Evaluator’s Guide <-If you’re thinking about kicking the tires on vSphere, you’ll want to read this.

License Server Configuration for vCenter Server 4.0 <-If you need to maintain a license server for running 3.x and 4.0 ESX hosts together, this could be helpful.

PXE Booting VMware ESXi <-I’ve seen many hacks on how to do this in 3.5, here’s the real answer in 4.0.

Replacing vCenter Server Certificates <-If you want to replace the vCenter certificates with your own from a CA or you’re own self-signing, here’s how.

What does Fault Tolerance do to prevent a split brain if both Primary and Secondary VMs become isolated?

Fault Tolerance (FT) uses an on-disk generation number file.  When FT is enabled the primary VM creates a file on shared storage called generation.N where N is a counter number.  The secondary VM is started and when it connects to the primary, the primary tells the secondary what the generation number is.  Once the Primary or secondary detects that there is a failure in the other half of the VM pair, it will try to rename the generation.N file to generation.N+1.  If the rename succeeds, the VM takes over as being the Primary (or remains the primary if it already was) and takes corrective action to rebuild a secondary and become protected again.  If the rename of the generation.N file fails, that means that the other VM in the pair already renamed the file and took over and the current VM shuts down.

There you have it, the disk subsystem prevents both VM’s from becoming the primary at the same time and creating a split brain.