The VMguy

When I have been talking to customers about all of the upcoming benefits of vSphere, Linked Mode sticks out in my mind.  Linked mode allows for multiple vCenter servers to share information between them.  This could be very helpful in managing multiple vCenter servers at different locations or branch offices.  It could also be helpful in setting up a vCenter server in a DR site to be managed with a single vSphere client.

vCenter 4.0 (vCenter is now 4.0 to be on par with ESX) includes linked mode in the standard edition of vCenter.  Those users who have current support on vCenter standard edition will receive linked mode as part of their included subscription.  Linked mode is not included in the foundation edition of vCenter or in the vSphere essentials editions .  Linked mode uses a ADAM (Active Directory Application Mode) database to replicate it’s configuration between multiple vCenter servers.  Some of the things stored in the ADAM database include: Read the rest of this entry »

We’ll I woke up at 5:30am this morning and could not sleep so I grabbed breakfast early and got a front row seat for today’s keynotes.  The keynotes today started with Dr. Stephen Herrod (pictured below), SVP of R&D and CTO, VMware.
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I had the poll automatically complete last friday and here are the results:  Of 110 votes cast by my readers, 57 of you said you run vCenter in a VM, 50 run it on Physical, and 3 don’t run vCenter at all.

Great information and thank you all that responded to the poll.

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Posted a new poll this past weekend.  I see some have already started responding.  I know a few blogs have run this one in the past but I’m curious with my SMB focus to see if the results vary.  Please take a quick sec and post a vote.  I’m closing the poll on March 7th (an extra week because I started it late).

Just as a FYI, I run mine in a VM.

This is a question I see come up periodically. Can I run one vCenter (VC) server and manage all of my remote ESX deployments from it? How much latency can VC take? What’s the minimum bandwidth for VC to run effectively?

An article by Desmond Chan was written back in September. I saw it on an internal Wiki but did not realize he had published it externally. It’s a good article describing what to consider if you only have a limited amount of bandwidth. The article describes some of the common administrative functions that are performed in VC on a daily basis and the amount of bandwidth they require. Definately some good reading if you need to manage ESX with VC over WAN links.  You can find the full article here .