The VMguy

Some good ones came out last week.  Let’s take a look:

• 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.

While this utility is still experimental, it can be very helpful.  For those trying out Data Recovery to backup your VM’s, this is a great way to mount the point-in-time images that Data Recovery catches.

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 .

There were 5 new technical papers published last week.  Some really good reading for administrators and architects.

• 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.

This question is definitely one of the most common that I receive.  "We’re thinking of building a new infrastructure for our virtual machines, which storage protocol should we use?"  There are two things to remember for this decision.  Performance and functionality. Read the rest of this entry »