The VMguy

Whew!  Much easier to manage when you have a smaller list to choose from.  Here’s the week’s selection from the 94 KB articles new or updated in the past week:

• VMotion wizard fails when migrating a virtual machine from an ESX 3.x host to an ESX 4.0 host <-The VM has to be on hardware version 4 at a minimum to vMotion to ESX4
• Determining if Intel Virtualization Technology or AMD Virtualization is enabled in the BIOS without rebooting <-You must have these enabled for 64-bit guest OSes or to use Enhansed vMotion Compatibility
• Control+Alt key combinations in the vCenter Service Console  <-Nice keyboard trick if you need to send ctrl-alt commands
• vShield Zones resource utilization and latency statistics  <-Zones utilization and footprint info.
• Which ports are required for vShield Zones operation? <-Also good to know for Zones operation
• Setting up vCenter Server in a Microsoft Cluster Service Cluster <-Great reference to know, updated last week
• A Windows 2003 virtual machine high CPU usage after a conversion from physical to virtual
• Sysprep file locations and versions <-anyone who deploys VMs from templates should bookmark this one
• Stopping, starting, or restarting VirtualCenter services <-updated to include v4
• Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support

Sorry, was out two days last week from a death in the family and still catching up.  Here’s the latest selection from the 268 articles new or updated in the last two weeks ended June 6:

• VMware View Client requires HTTP 1.1 to be enabled in Internet Explorer <-had no idea on this one, good to know
• Unable to Open Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel Attachments in a Captured Microsoft Outlook Application <-Another great tip for ThinApp
• Multipathing policies in ESX 4
• Mounting a virtual disk as a MacOS volume  <- Nice tip for Fusion
• Licensing Site Recovery Manager <-If testing or installing SRM, please read.
• Upgrading an ESX 3.x virtual machine to ESX 4.0
• Installing ESX 4.0 and vCenter 4.0 best practices <- A must read before upgrading
• Processors and guest operating systems that support VMware Fault Tolerance
• Disabling VMware Web Access on an ESX host
• Does fragmentation affect VMFS datastores? <-a great one I get asked about when I discuss thin provisioning
• Determining if multiple virtual CPUs are causing performance issues
• Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) support on ESX

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.

A great question that I get asked often and one that is on the rise with the impending release of vSphere.

For VI, there are 3 levels of support over time and I’m quoting them directly from the VI Support Lifecycle policy :

• General Support – (will be provided for two years from general availability of a Major or Minor Release, or one year after the next Major or Minor release, whichever is longer) Starting with General Release, customers will receive support from VMware as described in the table below. As new hardware is released by third party platform manufacturers, VMware will update the Hardware Compatibility Guide with platforms that have been tested and certified. However, VMware cannot guarantee that all new hardware will be certified and supported.
• Extended Support – (will be provided for three years following General Support.)  New hardware platforms are no longer supported, new guest OS updates may or may not be applied, and bug fixes are limited to critical issues. Critical bugs are deviations from specified product functionality that cause data corruption, data loss, system crash, or significant customer application down time and there is no work-around that can be implemented.
• Technical Guidance – (will be provided for two additional years following Extended Support.)  Assistance is available through the self help page. Customers can also open a support request online to receive support and workarounds for low-severity issues on supported configurations only. There will be no new hardware support, guest OS updates, security patches or bug fixes. The phase is intended for usage by customers operating in stable environments with systems that are operating under reasonably stable loads. Telephone support is not provided during Technical Guidance.

Now I could list all of the dates themselves for vCenter, VCB, ESX, etc.  However I think it’s best to provide you a link to the chart which can be found on the VI End of Support Matrix Page .  I think the most important date is the end of General support because that’s when you will probably want to consider upgrading your version, or at least, start to think about it.  Once general support is over, no hardware platforms are added and only critical patches are written.

For all of the other products (Fusion, Workstation, SRM, Lab Manager, etc) the policy is: upon the GA of a major release, VMware will support the immediately preceding major release for an additional 18 months.  You can find all of the details and the dates in the General Support Life Cycle Policy .

Here’s this week’s selection from the 176 articles new/updated in the last two weeks.  One note, I’m added some comments in-line in the list where appropriate on why I chose that article.

• Sysprep on Windows Server 2003 does not run
• Support for Windows 7 and the Aero theme <- For workstation, Fusion, etc.
  
• Unable to deploy linked clones and provisioning fails with the error reject prepare
• Conversion of a physical source with software mirrors fails
• Using stack trace information to diagnose purple screen errors
• Migrating virtual machines between ESX hosts without shared storage
• VirtualCenter 2.5 database upgrade fails
• Failure to create LUN snapshots when performing a Site Recovery Manager test failover
• Uploading the License file to the License Server <-Going away with the new license key model in vSphere
  
• Deleting Parallels tools <-For Fusion
• Diagnosing a VMware High Availability cluster configuration failure <-Great article for troubleshooting, bookmark it.
• Troubleshooting the VMware VirtualCenter Server service when it does not start or fails <-Great article for troubleshooting, bookmark it.
• Choosing a Network Adapter for Your Virtual Machine <-If you wondered the differences between the adapter types, please read.
• Using performance collection tools to gather data for fault analysis <-another good article on troubleshooting ESX crashes
• Extracting the log file after an ESX or ESXi host fails with a purple screen error
• Forcing a virtual machine to power off <-for Fusion
• Sysprep file locations and versions <-if you ever want to build a VM from a template, this is a keeper.
• Moving a managed ESX host from one VirtualCenter to another VirtualCenter
• Changing the download location for VMware Update Manager <-perhaps if you did not plan on enough disk space
• Configuring name resolution for VMware VirtualCenter